The North Wyke Farm Platform: Fine Resolution (15-minute) Soil Moisture Station Data

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) was established in 2010 to study and improve grassland livestock production at the farm-scale. The NWFP uses a combination of environmental sensors, routine field and lab-based measurements, and detailed management records to monitor livestock and crop production, emissions to water, emissions to air, soil health, and biodiversity. The rich NWFP datasets help researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of different grassland (and arable) farming systems, which in turn, contributes to the development of sustainable, resilient and net zero land management strategies. This document serves as a user guide to the soil moisture station (SMS) data (soil moisture and soil temperature sensors, rain gauge for precipitation) captured at a 15-minute temporal resolution. The guide gives details of the instrumentation, sensor calibration and data collection and is associated with other dedicated user guides that detail the design, establishment and development of the NWFP, field events, and the quality control process of datasets.