Rebmann, Corinna; Lausch, Angela; Schulz, Gundula; Chabrillat, Sabine; Milewski, Robert; Schrön, Martin; Werban, Ulrike; Pohle, Marco; Schmidt, Andreas; Pohl, Felix; Hermanns, Floris; Steigerwald, Sophie; Kotas, Helko; Gimper, Sebastian; Schmidt, Patrick; Schoßland, Andreas; Lehmann, Steffen; Schütze, Claudia (2021): Remote sensing event campaign with various optical and thermal sensors for soil moisture and evapotranspiration derivation in Central Germany investigating possible effects of different spatial scales [dataset bundled publication]. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.931767

The heat waves and droughts of 2018 / 2019 and in 2020 have had a devastating impact on the functioning of ecosystems and have led to an increasing vulnerability beyond the duration of heat waves (e.g. degradation and increased erosion, reduced carbon uptake by vegetation, modulated energy balance). Such impacts also include loss of agricultural production. A better understanding of the progression and the consequences of heatwaves and droughts is essential for the development and improvement of adaptation and protection measures. The airborne remote sensing event campaign performed in the agricultural area of the 'Magdeburger Boerde' in Central Germany aimed at providing remote sensing data sets from different platforms to derive high quality data for improving the understanding of influences and lag effects on hydrologic, biological/biogeochemical and atmospheric processes induced by the summer drought 2020. Multiple recurrences of drought periods in previous years may have led to irreversible changes in structure, composition and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems reducing ecosystem services and resilience. A second goal of the campaign with different available sensors in terms of an inter-calibration is to provide comprehensive and reliable data to ensure future campaign inter-comparability. The acquired data set includes airborne remote sensing data covering variable land cover types obtained by optical, thermal and multispectral sensors (see supplementary material: Schulz et al. (2020), Milewski et al. (2021) ). Furthermore, extensive data from various ground-truthing activities are available such as field spectrometer measurements, soil temperature mapping and soil moisture mapping via Cosmic Ray rovering and TDR-measurements. To complete the data set, micrometeorological time series, soil samples and vegetation characteristics were also taken.