The ECV soil moisture data set celebrates one year of users

Since its publication on 18th of June 2012 more than 536 users requested the ECV soil  moisture data set and the demand is steadily increasing. The first birthday of the data set can be celebrated as the success story continues and the demand is growing.

Compared to user analysis after the first six month of registrations most of the users are affiliated to research organisations (40%) and higher or secondary education institutions (25%), but also the public body (9%), non-profit organisations (7%) and private companies (5%) have their share. International recognition of the data set has more than doubled, now having users from 78 countries.

The majority of users are from Europe (39%), followed by Asia (28%) and America (27%). While the percentage of users from continental America has remained the same it increased by 10 % for users from Asia. Africa and Oceania both have a 3% share.

The area of interest and scale of applications was equally global and regional (each with 41%) at the last assessment in December 2012 but regional applications are now a majority (48%), followed by global (31%) and local (18%) applications.

All nine Group on Earth Observations (GEO) societal benefit areas can benefit from the ECV soil moisture data set, with most of the users working in climate (31%), water (29%) and agriculture (11%) areas. Besides these key areas the soil moisture data can support applications in the area of weather, ecosystems and disasters.

This assessment shows that one year after the first publication of the 30 years ECV soil moisture dataset the global recognition has increased and the data is shown to be of interest for a large variety of applications.