Dataset of in situ Soil Moisture and Temperature in Genhe watershed (2016-2018) and Saihanba (2018-2019) area over China

The data presented in this article are related to our work on “Evaluation and Analysis of SMAP, AMSR2 and MEaSUREs Freeze/Thaw Products in China”. Soil temperature and moisture are two of important parameters of land-atmosphere energy exchange, monitoring vegetation growth, predicting drought disasters and climate and hydrological modelling. In this study, soil temperature and moisture data over Genhe watershed and Saihanba area were introduced. There are 22 sites data presented here from the continuous automatic soil temperature and moisture observation network in Genhe watershed as a representative of the complex surface heterogeneity in northeast China from March 2016 to February 2018. Another continuous automatic soil temperature and moisture measurement network included 29 sites in Saihanba area with unique alpine wetland and a complete aquatic ecosystem in the North China since August 2018. Soil temperature and permittivity data were measured by ECH2O EC-5TM probes (Decagon Devices, Inc., Washington, USA) and XST probes (BJ XST Co., Ltd., www.xingshitu.com) every 30 minutes at depths of 3 cm, 5 cm and 10 cm for Genhe watershed and depths of 5 cm and 10 cm for Saihanba area. The soil temperature and moisture were collected by EM50 data collection system by automatically converted permittivity to soil moisture over Genhe watershed, and soil temperature and permittivity were collected by XST data collection system over Saihanba area. The permittivity collected by XST data collector were transformed to soil moisture (volumetric water content, VWC). The data of Genhe watershed and Saihanba area consist of raw data acquired by data collector and valid data of soil temperature and moisture. Dataset for Saihanba area also included the calibration data based on soil texture. The long-term soil temperature and moisture data can provide important ground reference data for the validation and algorithm improvement of soil moisture and soil freeze/thaw by microwave remote sensing in China.