SoMMet at Woche der Umwelt 2024 in Berlin
June 2024
SoMMet was presented at Woche der Umwelt (Week of the Environment) in Berlin on 4–5 June 2024. The event was jointly hosted by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) in the park of Bellevue Palace. Around 190 exhibitors presented innovative solutions for environmental protection, climate change adaptation, sustainability and biodiversity to approximately 12,000 visitors.
Researchers from PTB, the University of Potsdam (UP DE), Heidelberg University (UHEI) and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) jointly presented the exhibition topic Kosmische Hilfe für irdische Bodenfeuchtemessungen (Cosmic support for terrestrial soil moisture measurements).
Commercial cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) instruments were displayed alongside several commercial point-scale soil moisture sensors. The UFZ team demonstrated its CRNS rover, which enables mobile measurements of soil moisture across larger areas. NEMUS, PTB's neutron spectrometer based on the Bonner sphere principle, was also on display.
The exhibit showed how these complementary methods measure soil moisture at different spatial scales and explained why a metrological foundation is needed to make their results traceable, comparable and suitable for harmonisation.