05/15/13, Boise State University, Dept of Geosciences, Hydrologic Sciences, Jim McNamara Research Director, 
Pam Aishlin Site Maintenance and Data Management


Data provided herein is for soil instrumentatin site HN (high elevation, north-facing) of Dry Creek Experimental Watershed, Boise, Idaho.


DATA STREAM:    

1. Four pits were emplaced by graduate student Toni Smith, Boise State University in 2007.   


2. Data collection and site maintenance is provided by Boise State University Hydrologic Sciences.
 

3. Data files collected via Campbell Scientific datalogger are quality checked and post processed 
for gapfilling, noise filtering and/or corrected according to established instrument calibrations. 
 

SITE NOTES:

Soil moisture and soil temperature measurement site.  Site includes four soil pits with sensors at multiple depths, 
2, 15, 30 cm and near bedrock. Pits are located at 3 m quadrilateral separation.  Bedrock sensor depths for 
pits 1-4, accordingly, are 37,42,54,45 cm though bedrock depth is indicated as 67,64,63,70 accordingly.  
This site is north-facing, located in the Shingle Creek catchment of DCEW.  It is one of 8 soil sites established as 
north-south facing paired sites in 2007, 2008. Geology at this location is Sandy loam over fractured granodiorite. 
Site is forested and moderately steep. 


DATA/INSTRUMENT NOTES:

Sensors initially installed are Decagon ECH2O EC-TM soil moisture and soil temperature sensors. Sensor precision is 
0.001 for volumetric water content (cm3/mc3) and  0.1 celsius for soil temperature.  Sensors were calibrated in-lab at Boise
State University by Toni Smith, in cooperation with Decagon technical support, in accordance with manual specifications
and expected sandy loam soil.  An appropriate datalogger program was written  by Toni Smith in collaboration with Decagon 
technical support. 

An ultrasonic snow depth sensor was installed fall 2012. 


DATA POSTPROCESSING: 
Data gaps and NAN values are filled w/ -6999 as a nodata value.  
Algorithms are used to remove obviously erroneous values, such as negative moisture values and temperature above expected range
of -10 to 40 celsius, as well as obviously 'stuck' values. In some years, these algorithms were not applied in order to preserve 
trends such as occur with soil moisture into the negative range due to sensor calibration offset. 



ANNUAL ERRORS/GAPS/UPDATES:

Data collection initiated Feb 29, 2008, initially 10 minute data intervals. 

2012 - Only, apparently, one failed sensor, Pit1 30 cm sensor. Data gap  1/24/12 1600 at download, 
gapfilled w -6999, 5/1 - 5/15/12 missing. 10/5/12 changed program to include usd and record at 15 min interval.
112612, 112812 water apparently causing short circuit in usd sensor and draining battery, Minimal DATA 10/6 -11/26/12.
gap 10/6/12 - 10/7/12 1515 - 11/15/12 1315 due to wiring short-usd, gap 11/15/12-11/26/12, gap 11/2/- 11/28. 

2014:  Data gaps occur Oct, Nov 2014 due to low solar charge. 

2016:  Data gap 10/11/16 - 11/1/2016. 

2017:  Additional sensors have fail, pit 2 at 2 and 15 cm. Pit 1 shallow sensors are failing, while bedrock soil moisture is 
noisy. Pit 4 soil moisture is noisy.  

2018:

Sites decommissioned summer 2018. HN and HS may be kept operational?