Tracking Soil Moisture Dynamics with Vis-NIR Spectroscopy During Laboratory Bare-Soil Evaporation - Research Data

We conducted evaporation experiments on 5 cm tall packed soil columns of two soil types (sand and silt loam). The surface water content of each soil column was assessed by repeatedly recording spectra in the visible, near infrared, and shortwave infrared domain using an ASD Fieldspec® Pro spectrometer (350–2500 nm). To infer soil water content from the spectra, samples with defined water contents were independently analyzed with the ASD and a polynomial was fitted to the data. This dataset comprises all spectral data of the study and the water contents derived from numerical simulations with the Richards equation using the HYDRUS-1D code. All details are given in the corresponding open access publication, which can be accessed via the link provided.