TERENO (TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) spans an Earth observation network across Germany that extends from the North German lowlands to the Bavarian Alps. This unique large-scale project aims to catalogue the longterm ecological, social and economic impact of global change at regional level.
The central monitoring site of the TERENO Eifel/Lower Rhine Valley Observatory is the catchment area of the River Rur. It covers a total area of 2354 km² and exhibits a distinct land use gradient: The lowland region in the northern part is characterised by urbanisation and intensive agriculture whereas the low mountain range in the southern part is sparsely populated and includes several drinking water reservoirs. Furthermore, the Eifel National Park is situated in the southern part of the Rur catchment serving as a reference site. Intensive test sites are placed along a transect across the Rur catchments in representative land cover, soil, and geologic settings. The Rollesbroich site is located in the low mountain range “Eifel” near the German-Belgium border and covers the area of the small Kieselbach catchment (40 ha) with altitudes ranging from 474 to 518 m.a.s.l..
The climate is temperate maritime with a mean annual air temperature and precipitation of 7.7 °C and 1033 mm, respectively, for the period from 1981 to 2001. The study site is highly instrumented. All components of the water balance (e.g. precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, soil water content) are continuously monitored using state-of-the-art instrumentation, including weighable lysimeters, runoff gauges, cosmic-ray soil moisture sensors, a wireless sensor network that monitors soil temperature, and soil moisture at 189 locations in different depths (5, 20 and 50 cm) throughout the study site. Periodically also different chamber measurements were made to access soil or plant gas exchange.
Climate/Runoff/Water Quality station Rollesbroich:Runoff is measured at the catchment outlet using a gauging station equipped with a combination of a V-notch weir for low flow measurements and a Parshall flume to measure normal to high flows. Runoff data of the two weir types are combined by using V-notch values for water levels below 5 cm, Parshall flume values for water levels greater than 10 cm and the weighted mean of V-notch and Parshall flume values for water levels between 5 and 10 cm, where the water levels refer to those of the V-notch weir. Meteorological data, i.e. precipitation, air temperature, air humidity, radiation components, and wind speed, were recorded at 2 m height next to the runoff gauging station
As a first quality check, time series of both gauge types were compared for consistency. In addition, both runoff time series were visually inspected for inexplicable outliers (e.g. runoff peak without preceding rainfall event) and sensor failures. Unreliable data were identified by visual inspection and appropriate flags were set.
The observed parameters are listed in the keywords section. File format is NetCDF 4.0.
