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 LN (low 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 62,62,62,56 cm though bedrock depth is indicated as 62,65,62,73 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 grass-shrub vegetated 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 April 4, 2008, intially 10 min data.

2012 - Data gap 12/17/11 to 1/6/12 and 1/9 to 1/16, 2012.  Gap  1/17-1/24/12. Changed to 15 min on 10/12/12 1530.
Intermittent gaps begin on 11/17 due to low bat, when bat dip below 12v, gapfill needed; cumulative 6 days gap 
by 12/18/12. Gaps continue thereafter. Pit 2 2cm and pit 4 bedrock sensors have failed. Usd not fully installed. 


2015
gap 4/10/15 - 6/5/15 power disconnection error.  
Soil moi pit1 2 cm fail, pit2 30 cm year 2015 fail.

2016
no gaps. Soil moi pit1 2 cm fail, pit2 all but 15 (30) cm year 2015 fail.
pit4 2 cm partial fail, bedrk fail.  Data to be fetched from 11/29/2016.

2017
Sporadic gaps 6/17-8/22. Gap 8/22- 9/29 2017 due to power failure.
Pit 4 2cm T fails spring 2017.  

Soil moisture 9 working sensors across 4 pits.  T 11 working sensors across 4 pits. 
Only 1 shallow sensor is working. Only 2 deep sensors. 

2018
No gaps to April.