Development and Application of a Low–Cost Soil Temperature, Environment, and Moisture Monitoring Network (STEMMNET)

In order to bolster drought assessment and forecasting capabilities in Alabama, The University of Alabama in Huntsville has developed a rapidly-deployable, low-cost soil moisture, temperature, and environment monitoring network (STEMMNET). This network of sensors provides real-time data transmission at high temporal resolution, offering an extension into operational use beyond climatological analysis. Months of testing in a variety of environments have allowed for power consumption and other system optimizations, thus the stations are robust enough to survive network failure, limited solar availability, severe weather events, and potentially fire. Several stations were colocated with and compared to an existing research-grade soil moisture network with comparable results. Collaborations with the Alabama Forestry Commission and select National Weather Service offices have proven the versatility of and need for this network, as well as the benefit of taking high temporal resolution measurements. This presentation will showcase the wide variety of deployment locations planned and already in service, discuss lessons learned during station design process, and highlight the high quality data able to be obtained from a low-cost, minimal footprint, rapidly-deployable soil monitoring station.