A new, long-term root zone soil moisture dataset for operational agricultural drought monitoring over Africa

Maidment, Ross I. and Quaife, Tristan and Pinnington, Ewan and Black, Emily and Ejigu, Amsalework and Kumar, Dhirendra and Thomas, Simon (2026) A new, long-term root zone soil moisture dataset for operational agricultural drought monitoring over Africa. Scientific Data, 13 (1). pp. 1-18. ISSN 2052-4463

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Abstract

Abstract Quantifying root zone soil moisture (RZSM) is critical for assessing water availability to crops and identifying agricultural drought across Africa, with access to reliable and timely RZSM data essential for informed decision-making. While rainfall is frequently used to assess crop growing conditions, it alone may not reliably reflect crop water availability due to the impact of evapotranspiration on soil moisture and rainfall not always reflective of concurrent soil water content at rooting depth. To provide robust information on agricultural drought, this paper describes a new, operational RZSM dataset, called TAMSAT soil moisture (TAMSAT-SM), available from 1983-present at 0.25° spatial resolution. TAMSAT-SM is derived using the JULES land surface model, forced with TAMSAT rainfall estimates and other meteorological variables from the NCEP reanalysis, and tuned to SMAP satellite soil moisture observations. Comparison against other RZSM products and independent satellite-derived vegetation health data show TAMSAT-SM can reliably capture the spatial and temporal RZSM and vegetation health patterns across Africa and can be a useful tool to support existing agricultural drought monitoring efforts.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Maidment, Ross I. and Quaife, Tristan and Pinnington, Ewan and Black, Emily and Ejigu, Amsalework and Kumar, Dhirendra and Thomas, Simon
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Natural Sciences > Earth sciences > Geology, hydrology, meteorology Natural Sciences > Earth sciences > Geology, hydrology, meteorology > Climatology and weather Technology > Agriculture
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Climate Change and Sustainability
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/7738
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-026-06585-w

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