Interpreting temporal stability of root-zone soil moisture monitored in a critical zone observatory.

Soil moisture varies, even significantly, over both space and time through natural and anthropic processes and is controlled by interweaved time-variant (e.g. climate, vegetation) and time-invariant (e.g. terrain attributes, soil characteristics) factors. In the last decades, many different research investigations have been carried out in the Alento River Catchment (ARC; Campania Region, southern Italy), particularly concerning the building of a system of water reservoirs, but recently these activities have become more systematic and comprehensive within a Critical Zone Observatory (CZO; Romano et al. (2018). This CZO is included in the TERENO (TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) long-term ecosystem infrastructure network. ). Recent progress in the development of dielectric-based sensors and data communication/transmission has led to the ever-increasing use of wireless sensor networks enabling soil moisture dynamics to be monitored in both space and time very efficiently