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Climate change increases the occurrence and severity of droughts due to increasing temperatures, altered circulation patterns, and reduced snow occurrence. While Europe has suffered from drought events in the last decade unlike ever seen since the beginning of weather recordings, harmonized long-term datasets across the continent are needed to monitor change and support predictions. Here we present soil moisture data from 66 cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNSs) in Europe (COSMOS-Europe for short) covering recent drought events. The CRNS sites are distributed across Europe and cover all major land use types and climate zones in Europe. The raw neutron count data from the CRNS stations were provided by 24 research institutions and processed using state-of-the-art methods. The harmonized processing included correction of the raw neutron counts and a harmonized methodology for the conversion into soil moisture based on available in situ information. In addition, the uncertainty estimate is provided with the dataset, information that is particularly useful for remote sensing and modeling applications. This paper presents the current spatiotemporal coverage of CRNS stations in Europe and describes the protocols for data processing from raw measurements to consistent soil moisture products. The data of the presented COSMOS-Europe network open up a manifold of potential applications for environmental research, such as remote sensing data validation, trend analysis, or model assimilation. The dataset could be of particular importance for the analysis of extreme climatic events at the continental scale. Due its timely relevance in the scope of climate change in the recent years, we demonstrate this potential application with a brief analysis on the spatiotemporal soil moisture variability. The dataset, entitled "Dataset of COSMOS-Europe: A European network of Cosmic-Ray Neutron Soil Moisture Sensors", is shared via Forschungszentrum Jülich: 10.34731/x9s3-kr48 (Bogena and Ney, 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human-caused climate change increases the occurrence and severity of droughts due to increasing temperatures, altered circulation patterns and reduced snow occurrence. For example, Europe has suffered from drought events in the last decade like never since the beginning of weather recording. Here we present soil moisture data from 65 Cosmic-ray neutron sensors (CRNS) in Europe (COSMOS-Europe for short) covering recent drought events. The CRNS sites are distributed across Europe and cover all major land use types and climate zones in Europe. The raw neutron count data from the CRNS stations were provided by 23 research institutions and processed using state-of-the-art methods. The harmonised processing included correction of the raw neutron counts, and a harmonised methodology for the conversion into soil moisture based on available in-situ information. In addition, information on the data uncertainty is provided with the dataset, information that is particularly useful for remote sensing and modelling applications. This paper presents the current spatiotemporal coverage of CRNS stations in Europe and describes the protocols for data processing from raw measurements to consistent soil moisture products as well as first results on how the recent drought events have been captured by the CRNS network. This harmonised European soil moisture dataset will help both hydrologists and climate scientists to study individual drought events, to understand their causes, to evaluate and improve their modelling, and to estimate the extremity of current events. The dataset, entitled “Dataset of COSMOS-Europe: A European network of Cosmic-Ray Neutron Soil Moisture Sensors”, is shared via Forschungszentrum Jülich: https://doi.org/10.34731/x9s3-kr48 (Bogena and Ney, 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One achievement of the UK Land-Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) was to link dynamic biogeochemical models of different domains, e.g. rivers, estuaries and coastal waters, and to use the linked model to investigate possible changes from the current status that might occur in the future, for example as the result of climate change. The Climate, Hydrochemistry and Economics of Surface-water Systems (CHESS) project has taken the LOIS methodology forward by exploring possible impacts of climate change on the water quality of European rivers, with the purpose of informing future catchment management. This was achieved by the application of a standard modelling framework to a set of five European catchments located in Finland (River Vantaa), United Kingdom (Yorkshire Ouse), Belgium (Dender), Italy (Enza) and Greece (Pinios). Baseline conditions were simulated using existing meteorological data from the period 1961-1990, and in all cases the modelling framework was able to reproduce key features of the flow and water quality regimes of the study catchments. The modelling framework comprised two models. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to simulate water and chemical fluxes, primarily nutrients and sediment, generated from diffuse areas and thereby provide sub-catchment inputs to an in-stream water quality model, the Quality Evaluation and Simulation Tool for River Systems (QUESTOR). QUESTOR integrated the diffuse runoff along the channel network, together with point source discharges from industry and sewage treatment works, and water abstractions for public supply, industry and agriculture. The modelling framework has been used for the baseline conditions, along with a set of six climate scenarios. These comprised four scenarios derived from different general circulation models (GCMs) representing the 2050s, and three scenarios from the same GCM representing the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s, with one scenario in both groups. Results have been explored using a range of measures to reflect the different stakeholder interests within and beyond the catchment. The results reflect the variability in present day conditions (e.g. climate, soils, agriculture and industry), and the variability in the climate scenarios, both between-catchment and between-scenario. Specific examples are: the loss of the spring snowmelt causing high flows on the Vantaa; a decrease in the already very low summer flows on the Pinios; and significant seasonal changes in nutrient losses, even though the annual change is small.