4. Conclusions
In this study, we developed a data combination approach on the basis of
EOF analysis of space-time soil moisture data at a reference Shale Hills
catchment. We investigated the space-time characterization of soil
moisture and found that the variation of soil moisture could be
explained by using the first few EOFs. Results of the correlation
analysis showed that topography and soil properties have mixed effects
on the variability explained by the dominant soil moisture EOFs.
Benefits based on the derived underlying stable EOF patterns of soil
moisture, the relationships between site characteristics and the EOF
patterns were examined to conduct a spatial-temporal dataset
combination. Based on the long-term spatial extensive sampling campaign
and the specific transect of real-time monitoring, this study
investigated how to integrate the spatially extensive, but temporally
limited manual datasets with the temporally extensive, but spatially
limited automated monitoring datasets. This exercise was helpful for
understanding the soil moisture spatio-temporal patterns and the
hydrological responses at a small landscape scale, and are considered to
be important factors for the effective measurement and the practical
management of soil moisture at multiple scales.