The Murrumbidgee soil moisture monitoring network data set

This paper describes a soil moisture data set from the 82,000 km(2) Murrumbidgee River Catchment in southern New South Wales, Australia. Data have been archived from the Murrumbidgee Soil Moisture Monitoring Network (MSMMN) since its inception in September 2001. The Murrumbidgee Catchment represents a range of conditions typical of much of temperate Australia, with climate ranging from semiarid to humid and land use including dry land and irrigated agriculture, remnant native vegetation, and urban areas. There are a total of 38 soil moisture-monitoring sites across the Murrumbidgee Catchment, with a concentration of sites in three subareas. The data set is composed of 0-5 (or 0-8), 0-30, 30-60, and 60-90 cm average soil moisture, soil temperature, precipitation, and other land surface model forcing at all sites, together with other ancillary data. These data are available on the World Wide Web at http://www.oznet.org.au.