Soil moisture product consistency for operational drought monitoring in Europe

Gaona, Jaime; Bavera, Davide; Fioravanti, Guido; Hahn, Sebastian; Stradiotti, Pietro; Filippucci, Paolo; Camici, Stefania; Ciabatta, Luca; Mosaffa, Hamidreza; Puca, Silvia; Roberto, Nicoletta; Brocca, Luca

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3865-2025

Articles | Volume 29, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3865-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3865-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 29, issue 16

Research article

|

20 Aug 2025

Research article |

| 20 Aug 2025

Soil moisture product consistency for operational drought monitoring in Europe

Jaime Gaona, Davide Bavera, Guido Fioravanti, Sebastian Hahn, Pietro Stradiotti, Paolo Filippucci, Stefania Camici, Luca Ciabatta, Hamidreza Mosaffa, Silvia Puca, Nicoletta Roberto, and Luca Brocca

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3865-2025-supplement

Data sets

Drought Soil Moisture Anomalies (SMA) at 0.1deg spatial resolution derived from EUMETSAT - TU Wien ASCAT-SSM-CDR-12.5km version 7 (H120) of the ASCAT - Metop missions of active remote sensing soil moisture data over Europe v1 10day period (dekad) time-series (2007-2022) Jaime Gaona et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14706534

Short summary

Soil moisture is crucial for the water cycle since it is at the front line of drought. Satellite, model and in situ data help identify soil moisture stress but are challenged by data uncertainties. This study evaluates trends and data coherence of common active/passive microwave sensors and model-based soil moisture data against in situ stations across Europe from 2007 to 2022. Data reliability is increasing, but combining data types improves soil moisture monitoring capabilities.