An Update on the NEON Design for Soil Sensors and Sampling.

Soils are one of the most complex components of terrestrial ecosystems and play a key role in a range of ecological properties and processes, including carbon storage, ecohydrology, nutrient cycling, and supporting hyper-diverse biological communities. As a result soil measurements represent a major focus of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) terrestrial observing design.

Soil-based sensors will monitor profiles of soil temperature, moisture, and CO₂, as well as soil heat flux. More complex data products (e.g. soil CO₂ flux) are slated for development early in operations.  A single large soil pit is being excavated to perform calibrations and maximize the accuracy of sensor measurements, provide information on soil properties, and establish a soil archive. A total of 3.2 kilograms of soil from each horizon within the pit at at all 47 terrestrial NEON sites is being archived and is available for request following processing and cataloging. In addition to sensor based measurements and the single excavation for archiving and calibration purposes, the NEON design includes repeat spatially and temporally distributed measures of chemical, biological and physical measures of soil across all 47 sites. Here we provide an overview of the NEON design for measuring soil properties and an update on the installation of sensors and availability of related data products and archived soil samples.