The characterization of patterns as well as the development, verification and operation of models require measured data. In addition to conducting experiments for their own particular study questions, many scientific subprojects of the TR32 have a common interest in continuously measured multi-purpose data.

To ensure an optimal availability of such data, the TR32 has set up an infrastructure for obtaining and managing third-party as well as own measurements. Especially regarding the water cycle, the study area already contains a wealth of monitoring stations operated by authorities such as weather services or water boards. This includes more than 40 gauges each monitoring precipitation and river runoff, respectively, in the Rur catchment alone, many of which deliver additional valuable weather and climate data. These are collected and provided by the central infrastructure project Z1 "Project Database and Data Management". Such external data are complemented by additional parameters and measurement sites which are of particular interest to the TR32 questions, and therefore operated or co-maintained by the TR32.

For example, seven eddy covariance (EC) stations have been installed to measure the vertical exchange fluxes of CO2, water vapour, heat and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere in the most important land use types of the study area, including a forested and a deforested site, two grasslands, two crop rotation sites, and varying surfaces characterized by a mobile system. Together with standard weather data and soil measurements also obtained at EC stations, these fluxes are used e.g. to improve soil-vegetation-atmosphere models, or serve as a reference for scientific campaign measurements with chambers or airborne systems.

The central infrastructure project Z3 "Measurement Support and Data Processing" operates (4) and co-maintains (3, with subprojects C3, D2, and the University of Trier) these stations, including calibration of CO2 and water vapour sensors as well as the processing of raw data into fluxes, quality flags, uncertainty estimates and estimates of the area represented by the measurement. In a similar manner, soil moisture is measured by wireless sensor networks, passive microwave radiometers and cosmic ray probes (subproject C6) at 10 sites, and 7 additional weather stations within the study area, supported by Z3. Two weather radars operated by TR32 member institutions continuously map precipitation over the study area (subproject D5), and a suite of ground-based remote sensing instruments (subproject D2) monitors, among others, the cloud distribution and water content of the atmosphere from the JOYCE observatory at Jülich.

In addition, subproject D2 augmentated EC-stations with continuously measuring fluorescence sensors as well as thermally imaging cameras. While the considerable amount of hardware required for this large range of measurement parameters and sites was only possible by bringing together sites, instruments and funds from multiple sources such as institute basic funds or the Helmholtz Infrastructure project TERENO, it is the merit of the TR32 to contribute considerable manpower to a consistent maintenance, processing, formatting and provision of the resulting data for its scientific subprojects. Regular processing of land use maps from satellite remote sensing data by the infrastructure project Z1 helps to put the various point and mapping measurements into context with the human influence on changing vegetation patterns. The TR32 will make available to the public all data it is entitled to, in particular all data measured by itself.

Station List