Dataset
EOCIS: Soil Moisture Africa, v2.3.1
Abstract
This dataset contains Africa-wide soil moisture and related water balance variables produced within the Earth Observation Climate Information Service (EOCIS) project.
The product is derived using the JULES land surface model, forced with TAMSAT satellite rainfall estimates and other meteorological variables from the NCEP reanalysis, and tuned to NASA SMAP satellite soil moisture observations. Data are provided at the daily scale, from 1983-01-01 to present (latency around 7 days) at 0.25 degrees by 0.25 degrees spatial resolution.
Users should note that, due to challenges in estimating root-zone soil moisture, large differences can occur between datasets. As a result, absolute root-zone soil moisture values (including those from TAMSAT-SM) should be interpreted with caution when comparing across different products.
For further details, please visit the TAMSAT website (https://www.tamsat.org.uk).
Details
| Previous Info: |
No news update for this record
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| Previously used record identifiers: |
No related previous identifiers.
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| Access rules: |
Public data: access to these data is available to both registered and non-registered users.
Use of these data is covered by the following licence(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record. |
| Data lineage: |
This dataset was produced by the TAMSAT Group (University of Reading) in the context of the Earth Observation Climate Information Service (EOCIS) project. |
| Data Quality: |
The soil moisture variables are suitable for both operational and research applications.
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| File Format: |
Files are NetCDF formatted.
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Related Documents
| Quick Start Guide |
| TAMSAT webpage |
Citations: 1
The following citations have been automatically harvested from external sources associated with this resource where DOI tracking is possible. As such some citations may be missing from this list whilst others may not be accurate. Please contact the helpdesk to raise any issues to help refine these citation trackings.
| Onkaew, K., Quaife, T., Black, E., & Maidment, R. I. (2026). The influence of plant soil moisture stress on solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence efficiency across Africa. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 47(6), 2500–2517. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2026.2618097 https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2026.2618097 |
Process overview
| Title | EOCIS: Soil Moisture Africa, v2.3.1 |
| Abstract | Soil moisture and related variables were derived using the JULES land surface model forced by TAMSAT v3.1 satellite rainfall estimates and NCEP meteorological variables. JULES soil hydraulic parameters were calibrated using SMAP satellite soil moisture observations. |
| Input Description | None |
| Output Description | None |
| Software Reference | None |
- units: kg m-2 s-1
- var_id: fao_et0
- long_name: FAO Penman-Monteith evapotranspiration for reference crop
- units: kg m-2
- var_id: smc_avail_top
- long_name: Gridbox available moisture in top 1.000000m of soil
- units: kg m-2
- var_id: smcl
- long_name: Gridbox moisture content of each soil layer
- units: kg m-2 s-1
- var_id: fqw_gb
- long_name: Gridbox moisture flux from surface
- units: kg m-2 s-1
- var_id: precip
- long_name: Gridbox precipitation rate
- units: kg m-2 s-1
- var_id: runoff
- long_name: Gridbox runoff rate
- units: 1
- var_id: fsmc_gb
- long_name: Gridbox soil moisture availability factor (beta)
- units: 1
- var_id: fsmc
- long_name: PFT soil moisture availability factor (beta)
- long_name: time
- var_id: time
- units: days
Co-ordinate Variables
- units: degrees_north
- standard_name: latitude
- long_name: latitude
- var_id: lat
- units: degrees_east
- standard_name: longitude
- long_name: longitude
- var_id: lon
Temporal Range
1983-01-01T00:00:00
Ongoing
Geographic Extent
37.3750° |
||
-17.8750° |
51.3750° |
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-35.3750° |