{"id":39231,"date":"2014-11-24T10:49:10","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T16:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=39231"},"modified":"2014-11-25T09:20:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T15:20:36","slug":"how-underground-sensors-in-texas-will-help-nasa-predict-drought-and-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/11\/24\/how-underground-sensors-in-texas-will-help-nasa-predict-drought-and-floods\/","title":{"rendered":"How Underground Sensors In Texas Will Help NASA Predict Drought and Floods"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"module image aligncenter mceTemp mceIEcenter\" id=\"attachment_39235\" style=\"width: 620px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Todd Caldwell works on a soil moisture monitoring station in Central Texas.&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;\n\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/Casteel-Photo-III.jpeg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-39235\" alt=\"Todd Caldwell works on a soil moisture monitoring station in Central Texas. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/Casteel-Photo-III-620x219.jpeg\" width=\"620\" height=\"219\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/Casteel-Photo-III-620x219.jpeg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/Casteel-Photo-III-300x106.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Credit Photo courtesy of Richard Casteel<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Caldwell works on a soil moisture monitoring station in Central Texas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Stanley Rabke\u2019s family has lived and worked on their Hill Country ranch since 1889. Generations of Rabkes have struggled with the extremes of Texas weather, but one storm sticks out in Stanley\u2019s memory: it came after the drought of the 1950s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt rained and rained and rained,\u201d he says. \u201cBack then we raised turkeys, we lost thousands of turkeys that washed away in the creek.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The disaster underscores an irony of life in Texas. \u201cYou hope and pray that you\u2019re going to get a good rain, [but] on the other side of it, you hope you don\u2019t get a flood,\u201d says Rabke.<\/p>\n<p>A quick walk from where the turkeys met their fate, some new technology that will help manage that risk is being installed &#8212; soil monitoring sensors in the ground.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/177987440&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Dr. Todd Caldwell and his team have\u00a0dug a pit and they\u2019re connecting wires and setting up a tripod monitoring station. They&#8217;re part of a project called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beg.utexas.edu\/soilmoisture\/\">Texas Soil Observation Network<\/a>. It&#8217;s an effort to better understand the condition of the earth throughout the state. Today, they\u2019ve run into some difficulty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou see the sensors have about a 15 centimeter-long tine that\u2019s thin metal, and we have to push those into the clay when it\u2019s dry. This is kind of set up like a concert,\u201d Caldwell \u00a0says. \u201cSo, we have to push really hard to get them in, so we\u2019re struggling a bit right now\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"module image alignright mceTemp\" id=\"attachment_39238\" style=\"width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Stanley Rabke remembers the drought busting rains of 1957.&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;&lt;br \/&gt;\n\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/stanly-rabke.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39238\" alt=\"Stanley Rabke remembers the drought busting rains of 1957. \" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/stanly-rabke-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/stanly-rabke-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/stanly-rabke-620x414.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/11\/stanly-rabke.jpg 1222w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Credit Photo by Mose Buchele<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stanley Rabke remembers the drought busting rains of 1957.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The tines measure the how much water is in the soil. That information travels on buried wires to the tripod. It gathers more data. then it feeds it on a cellular network back to the landowner, and then to the University of Texas. That\u2019s where Caldwell works, at UT&#8217;s Bureau of Economic Geology.<\/p>\n<p>Why does soil moisture matter? Think back to those turkeys. The floods that washed them away came after years of drought, when the ground was, in Caldwell\u2019s words, \u201cset up like concrete.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It seems counter-intuitive, but it\u2019s common for floods to occur in Texas not only when the earth is over-saturated, but when also when it&#8217;s too dry. So monitors help predict flooding.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not all. They also tell farmers when to irrigate and reveal how water seeps through the soil to refill aquifers. Monitors can help the state predict how Texas reservoirs will refill after a rainfall.\u00a0 Will that runoff go to the reservoir, or get sucked up into the ground?<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/10\/02\/when-can-a-big-storm-or-drought-be-blamed-on-climate-change\/\">When Can A Big Storm Or Drought Be Blamed On Climate Change?<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/09\/18\/despite-rains-drought-still-grips-texas-towns\/\">Despite Some Rain, Drought Still Grips Texas Towns<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/09\/11\/texas-and-the-on-again-off-again-el-nino\/\">What an On-Again, Off-Again El Ni\u00f1o Means For Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/09\/09\/how-advances-in-tech-and-research-could-help-confront-future-drought\/\">How Advances in Tech and Research Could Help Confront Future Drought<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/119835727-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/drought\/\">Everything You Need to Know About the Texas Drought<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThat means the folks at\u00a0LCRA\u00a0and in the Highland Lakes system, they can make decisions on how much water to release by having that information,\u201d says Michael Young, also with the Bureau of Economic Geology. \u201cIt would be the same for first responders for flood prediction: by knowing what the soil moisture is, we can do a better job of predicting floods.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The monitors will be used to reveal more about global weather patterns as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re kind of under the gun right now, trying to get this all knocked out in time for the satellite launch,\u201d Caldwell says.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite he\u2019s talking about is part of NASA\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/news.php?feature=4383\">Soil Moisture Active Passive Project<\/a>. It will measure the earth\u2019s soil moisture globally every three days.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite will carry two devices to do that: one to measure heat from the earth\u2019s surface and the other a radar sensor. The information they gather will estimate soil moisture levels globally. But it needs to be validated by local sensors on the ground. That\u2019s where monitors like the one on the\u00a0Rabke\u00a0ranch come in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese local measurements are very important. We may not be able to resolve many issues using satellite data,\u201d says\u00a0Nerendra\u00a0Das, a scientist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab who is working on the project.<\/p>\n<p>With all the data points put together, NASA hopes to improve weather forecasting, better predict drought and reveal more about how the sun\u2019s energy hits the ground to make weather happen in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a big, ambitious, project. But that doesn\u2019t make it an easy sell.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a struggle, let\u2019s just say,\u201d says Caldwell. \u201cThat\u2019s why we hopscotch between property owners that are available that day, or even willing to talk to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back at the ranch, Todd Caldwell says he\u2019s having trouble finding landowners to let him set up his monitoring stations. Distrust of government has been around for a long time in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is suspicion that the government is watching them,\u201d Caldwell says. \u201cAnd satellites are watching us there\u2019s no joke about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just, in this case, he says all they want to watch, is the soil moisture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credit Photo courtesy of Richard Casteel Todd Caldwell works on a soil moisture monitoring station in Central Texas. Stanley Rabke\u2019s family has lived and worked on their Hill Country ranch since 1889. Generations of Rabkes have struggled with the extremes of Texas weather, but one storm sticks out in Stanley\u2019s memory: it came after the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[61],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39231"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39231"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39246,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39231\/revisions\/39246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}