The climate and soil moisture network at TERENO Northeastern German Lowland Observatory - DEMMIN

The goal of the TERENO initiative is the long-term monitoring and documentation of proposed climate change, changes in land use, social-economic developments and anthropogenic influences on terrestrial ecosystems. Therefore long-term observations of multitemporal environmental parameters at different scale are the basis for gathering information on changes of the available water resources, material flows, or further ecological changes. The Durable Environmental Multidisciplinary Monitoring Information Network (DEMMIN®) located in the North-east of Germany was installed by German Aerospace Center in 1999 for Calibration and Validation of Remote Sensing data at agricultural areas. Due to its physiographic composition and typical agricultural management the area is a perfect test site for monitoring of relevant environmental parameters. Since 2009 the DEMMIN test field of 50 x 50 km is part of the Northeastern German Lowland Observatory (TERENONE), which is coordinated by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Because of the remote sensing focus of the DEMMIN test sites it is a perfect area to evaluate the potential of linking ground based in-situ data with remote sensing data analysis with view to the COPERNICUS initiative of the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA).