HS
Hydrological Sciences

datasets

HydroData Chronicles: A High-Resolution 40-Year Rainfall Dataset Covering the Entire Contiguous US

and March 26, 2024
HydroData Chronicles: A High-Resolution 40-Year Rainfall Dataset Covering the Entire Contiguous US

Welcome to our new blog-series focused on exploring the vast, yet fascinating world of hydrological datasets: HydroData Chronicles! Throughout this series, we embark on a journey through the intricate backend of hydrology, where data serves as the cornerstone of our understanding of water resources, as well as their potential impact on scientific research and policy-making. Join us as we navigate ...[Read More]

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 2: Sensors & Electronics

February 1, 2024
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 2: Sensors & Electronics

As a child, I was a huge fan of LEGO. I would spend hours building and creating structures, vehicles and landscapes. For every birthday & Christmas, I wished for the newest sets of these colorful plastic bricks. While building the sets manually was fun, creating something new from my own fantasy was even better. It seemed like once I had a substantial amount of different bricks, combination po ...[Read More]

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 1: Microcontrollers

November 30, 2023
Do-It-Yourself (DIY) in Geoscience Miniseries – Part 1: Microcontrollers

We geoscientists need all different kinds of data: soil moisture, water-levels, snow height, radiation, precipitation height and the list goes on. However, the devices we need to generate that data are often too expensive, not available or even don’t exist. Therefore, it’s sometimes necessary to build them yourself (like many geoscientists do – those who annually present their senors p ...[Read More]

Care to get your boots wet? The ‘Partial Surface Water Challenge’

October 26, 2023
Care to get your boots wet? The ‘Partial Surface Water Challenge’
The author plants a marker alongside a submerged temperature/inundation sensor in a 356 square kilometre wetland in south-eastern Oregon, USA. Photo credit: Anteneh Sarbanes (USGS)

Inland surface water is a critical resource when scarce and a potential hazard when floods occur. Because the extent of surface water affects habitat condition, weather, and biogeochemical cycles, our ability to accurately track variations in surface water extent is important for resource management, science, commerce, hazard mitigation, and policy making.  Openly distributed data derived from sat ...[Read More]