Water Holding Capacity (High Resolution)*

Measures a soil's ability to retain water at a detailed 100m scale, essential for evaluating drought resilience, flood resilience and effectiveness of regenerative practices at site level.

availability

On Demand

Now

indicator tier

Diamond

unit

m³ (total and per hectare), Ratio

spatial resolution

100m

measurement frequency

Annual

measurement level

Plot

historic data availability

2018 - 2024

Forescast data availability

2025-2035

applicable crop types

All

applicable land type

Grassland

Conservation

Cropland

Forestry

compliance frameworks

CSRD (ESRS E4), Nature Positive Initiative (NPI), SAI, SBTN, TNFD

description

Measures the maximum amount of water a particular soil can retain. This is a fundamental soil property that influences drought resilience, irrigation needs, and nutrient availability for plants. Understanding a soil's water holding capacity is essential for optimizing agricultural practices, assessing land suitability, and managing water resources efficiently. This data is provided at a 100m resolution to support detailed-scale analysis.

methodology

Water holding capacity is estimated based on soil moisture dynamics over time, analyzing the ability of soil to retain water against gravity (also known as field capacity). It is derived from a time-series of soil moisture data and constrained by soil texture information from SoilGrids.

validation

The soil moisture data processor has been extensively validated against ground measurements and the results are published in scientific, peer-reviewed literature (Escorihuela et al., 2018, 2021, 2022). The satellite data underlying our monitoring undergo intensive quality control through the satellite data processing agencies (NASA, ESA). We validated the estimation of the water holding capacity in an extensive global campaign against ground reference samples (peer-reviewed publication in prep).