REVIEW OF: Three years of soil moisture observations by a dense cosmic-ray neutron sensing cluster at an agricultural research site in north-east Germany

Heistermann et al

General Comments

This data paper concerns an extensive data set of cosmic ray soil moisture systems (permanent, temporary and roving) and a large array of complementary observations to aid in data utilisation and processing. The paper is generally well written and data presentation is of a high quality. The coverage of a very wide range of environmental conditions within the dataset makes it a useful reference dataset for a range of investigations. It would be good to see a volumetric soil moisture dataset for the static CRNS so that non-experts can use the data without having to derive their own calibration. The data is there for those with more experience to run their own calibration procedure.

I have no major issue with publication subject to minor comments below.

Specific Comments

L14 – would be useful if this was a hyperlink. It is, after all, the main focus of the paper

L24 – suggest “allowing users to obtain”

L57 – suggest “hence allowing”

L62 – suggest “ …spanning all seasons and providing observations across more diverse…”

L66 – suggest “ …not only allows studying of the effect of the vertical soil moisture distribution on the CRNS signal, but also, together with groundwater observations, facilitates investigation of the processes of infiltration and groundwater recharge.”

L71 – suggest “…muon-monitoring allows studying of novel methods for the local correction…”

Table 1, 3.4 – does the Roving data not include lat/long and elevation?

L103 – isn’t the Quaesta instrument the same that is sold through Hydroinnova just under licence?

L150 – how is this justified/calculated?

L163 – what depth does the GNSS method reflect? Is it fixed or moisture dependent – more information is required

L217 – do you mean accuracy of 0.05 m3/m3?

L201 – suggest “... using a weighing pluviometer…”

Figure 6 caption – suggest “weight-based pluviometer” or just “weighing pluviometer”

Climate.zip – the files are .csv (comma separated values) but the text in the files is tab delimited. They should be .tsv or .tab files

CRNS_roving.zip – again the files are not comma delimited – they are tab delimited so the file extension is not correct

CRNS_stationary.zip – it would be nice to have an actual worked version of the soil moisture data with a time series of CRNS soil moisture – this would help non-CRNS researchers to use the data based on the processing method that you specify. All the other data for processing is alternative ways is there if required for more advanced users.

Soil_moisture_manual_sampling.zip – the file called theta_grav_OM_LW_texture.txt does not have lattice water values

Review of

Three years of soil moisture observations by a dense cosmic-ray neutron sensing cluster at an agricultural research site in north-east Germany

by

Heistermann et al.

This is a well written and illustrated data paper. The proposed database has interesting potential for the validation of high spatial resolution satellite-derived products and model simulations.

I suggest adding one column in Table 1 showing the range of measured values on this site with an indication of the mean or median value, for each measured variable.