Scientific Data (Jul 2024)

Dataset of soil hydraulic parameters in the Yellow River Basin based on in situ deep sampling

  • Yongping Tong,
  • Yunqiang Wang,
  • Jingxiong Zhou,
  • Xiangyu Guo,
  • Ting Wang,
  • Yuting Xu,
  • Hui Sun,
  • Pingping Zhang,
  • Zimin Li,
  • Ronny Lauerwald

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03576-7
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Abstract Soil hydraulic parameters are vital for precisely characterizing soil hydrological processes, which are critical indicators for regulating climate change effects on terrestrial ecosystems and governing feedbacks between water, energy, and carbon–nitrogen cycles. Although many studies have integrated comprehensive soil datasets, data quality and cost challenges result in data completeness deficiencies, especially for deep soil information. These gaps not only impede methodological endeavours but also constrain soil parameter-based ecosystem process studies spanning from local profiles to global earth system models. We established a soil dataset across the entire Yellow River Basin (YRB) (795,000 km2) using high-density in situ field sampling. This observation-based dataset contains records of soil texture (2924), bulk density (2798), saturated hydraulic conductivity (2782), and water retention curve parameters (1035) down to a maximum depth of 5 m. This dataset, which extends the recorded data range for deep soil hydraulic parameters, is valuable as a direct data resource for environmental, agronomical and hydrological studies in the YRB and regions with similar pedological and geological backgrounds around the world.