The dataset of ground truth measurements synchronizing with Envisat ASAR was obtained in No. 1 and 2 quadrates of the E'bao foci experimental area on Oct. 18, 2007 during the pre-observation period. The data were in AP mode and VV/VH polarization combinations, and the overpass time was approximately at 11:17 BJT (Beijing Time). Both the quadrates were divided into 3×3 subsites, with each one spanning a 30×30 m2 plot. 25 sampling points were chosen, including centers and corners. Simultaneous with the satellite overpass, numerous ground data were collected, soil volumetric moisture, soil conductivity, the soil temperature, and the real part of soil complex permittivity by the WET soil moisture tachometer; the surface radiative temperature by the hand-held infrared thermometer; soil gravimetric moisture, volumetric moisture, and soil bulk density by drying soil samples from the cutting ring (100cm^3). Meanwhile, vegetation parameters as height, coverage and water content were also observed. Surface roughness was detailed in the "WATER: Surface roughness dataset in the A'rou foci experimental area". Those provide reliable ground data for retrieval and verification of soil moisture, soil freeze/thaw status and the microwave radiative transfer model from active remote sensing approaches.

The dataset of ground truth measurement synchronizing with MODIS was obtained in the Linze grassland foci experimental area on Jun. 22, 2008. Simultaneous east-west ground measurements on the canopy temperature, the half-height temperature and the land surface radiative temperature were carried out by the hand-held infrared thermometer at intervals of 125m in 8 quadrates (2km×2km), No.1 quadrate (H01-H08) on Jun. 22, No.2 quadrate (H09-H16) on Jun. 23,No.3 quadrate (H17-H24) on Jun. 22, No.4 quadrat (H25-H32) on Jun. 23, No.5 quadrate (H33-H40) on Jun. 22, No.6 quadrate (H41-H48) on Jun. 23, No,7 quadrate (H49-H56) and No.8 quadrate (H57-H64) on Jun. 23. Data were archived in Excel format. See WATER: Dataset of setting of the sampling plots and stripes in the foci experimental area of Linze station for more information.

The dataset of ground truth measurement synchronizing with the airborne imaging spectrometer (OMIS-II) mission was obtained in the Linze station foci experimental area on Jun. 6, 2008. Observation items included: (1) soil moisture (0-5cm) measured by the cutting ring (50cm^3) along LY06, LY07 and LY08 strips (repeated nine times). The preprocessed soil volumetric moisture data were archived as Excel files. (2) surface radiative temperature measured by three handheld infrared thermometers (5# and 6# from Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, and one from Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources, which were all calibrated) in LY06 and LY07 strips. There are 49 sample points in total and each was repeated three times synchronizing with the airplane. Data were archived as Excel files. See the metadata record “WATER: Dataset of setting of the sampling plots and stripes in the Linze station foci experimental area” for more information of the quadrate locations.

On 25 August 2012, a RCD30 camera of Leica Company boarded on the Y-12 aircraft was utilized to obtain the optical remote sensing data. RCD30 camera has a focal length of 80 mm and four bands including red, green, blue and near-infrared bands. The absolute flight altitude is 5200 m and ground sample distance is 6-19 cm. The product includes TIF images and exterior orientation elements.

The No. 2 hydrological section is located at 312 Heihe River Bridge (38°59′51.71″ N, 100° 24′38.76″ E, 1485 m a.s.l.) in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin, Zhangye, Gansu Province. The dataset contains observations from the No.2 hydrological section from 19 June, 2012, to 24 November, 2012. This section consists of two river sections, i.e., the east section is marked as No. 1 and the west section is marked as No. 2. The width of this section is 90 meters. This section consists of a gravel bed; the cross-sectional area is unstable because of human factors. The water level was measured using SR50 ultrasonic range and the discharge was measured using cross-section reconnaissance by the StreamPro ADCP. The dataset includes the following sections: Water level (recorded every 30 minutes) and Discharge. The data processing and quality control steps were as follows: 1) The water level data which collected from the hydrological station were averaged over intervals of 10 min for a total of 144 records per day. The missing data were denoted by -6999. 2) Data out the normal range records were rejected. 3) Unphysical data were rejected. For more information, please refer to Liu et al. (2016) (for multi-scale observation experiment or sites information), He et al. (2016) (for data processing) in the Citation section.

This dataset contains the flux measurements from the barren-land station eddy covariance system (EC) in the lower reaches of the Heihe hydrometeorological observation network from 10 July to 31 December, 2013. The site (101.133° E, 41.999° N) was located in the barren-land surface, Ejin Banner in Inner Mongolia. The elevation is 878 m. The EC was installed at a height of 3.5 m, and the sampling rate was 10 Hz. The sonic anemometer faced north, and the separation distance between the sonic anemometer and the CO2/H2O gas analyzer (CSAT3&Li7500) was 0.15 m. The raw data acquired at 10 Hz were processed using the Edire post-processing software (University of Edinburgh, http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/abs/research/micromet/EdiRe/), including the spike detection, lag correction of H2O/CO2 relative to the vertical wind component, sonic virtual temperature correction, coordinate rotation (2-D rotation), corrections for density fluctuation (Webb-Pearman-Leuning correction), and frequency response correction. The EC data were subsequently averaged over 30 min periods. The observation data quality was divided into three classes according to the quality assessment method of stationarity (Δst) and the integral turbulent characteristics test (ITC), as proposed by Foken and Wichura [1996]: class 1 (level 0: Δst<30 and ITC<30), class 2 (level 1: Δst<100 and ITC<100), and class 3 (level 2: Δst>100 and ITC>100), which represent high-, medium-, and low-quality data, respectively. In addition to the above processing steps, the half-hourly flux data were screened using a four-step procedure: (1) data from periods of sensor malfunction were rejected; (2) data collected before or after 1 h of precipitation were rejected; (3) incomplete 30 min data were rejected when the missing data constituted more than 3% of the 30 min raw record; and (4) data were rejected at night when the friction velocity (u*) was less than 0.2 m/s. There were 48 records per day, and the missing data were replaced with -6999. Suspicious data were marked in red. Due to the malfunction of CO2/H2O gas analyzer and CF card storage problem, data during 17 July to 13 September and 6 December to 11 December were missing. The released data contained the following variables: data/time, wind direction (Wdir, °), wind speed (Wnd, m/s), the standard deviation of the lateral wind (Std_Uy, m/s), virtual temperature (Tv, ℃), H2O mass density (H2O, g/m^3), CO2 mass density (CO2, mg/m^3), friction velocity (ustar, m/s), stability (z/L), sensible heat flux (Hs, W/m^2), latent heat flux (LE, W/m^2), carbon dioxide flux (Fc, mg/ (m^2s)), quality assessment of the sensible heat flux (QA_Hs), quality assessment of the latent heat flux (QA_LE), and quality assessment of the carbon flux (QA_Fc). In this dataset, the time of 0:30 corresponds to the average data for the period between 0:00 and 0:30; the data were stored in *.xls format. For more information, please refer to Li et al. (2013) (for hydrometeorological observation network or sites information), Liu et al. (2011) (for data processing) in the Citation section.

The dataset of ground-based RPG-8CH-DP microwave radiometers (6.925H/V, 18.7H/V and 36.5H/V) and ground truth observations for snow was obtained in the Binggou watershed foci experimental area on Mar. 24 (time-continuous from 11:42 to 17:28 BJT) and Mar. 25, 2008 (short-time multi-angle observations). A gentle slope of 10° was chosen as the observation site, where there was firn snow and the snow layer and the ice layer appeared alternately. The radiometer beam was set from -20° to -55°, with the steplength 5°. Observation items included: (1) The brightness temperature by the microwave radiometer in .BRT and .txt (the ASCII format). Each row in .txt was listed by year, month, date, hour, minute, second, 6.925GHz (h), 6.925GHz (v), 10.65GHz (h), 10.65GHz (v) , 18.7GHz (h), 18.7GHz (v), 36.5GHz (h), 36.5GHz (v), the elevation angle, and the azimuth angle. Values for 6.925GHz and 10.65GHz were zero due to the absence of these two radiometers. (2) Snow parameters including the snow profile temperature by the probe thermometer and the handheld infrared thermometer, the snow grain size by the handheld microscope, snow moisture, snow density, and snow permittivity by the snow fork. Five subfolders are archived, including the brightness temperature and the profiles of liquid water content, the snow grain size, snow density and the snow temperature.

The dataset of ground truth measurements for snow synchronizing with the airborne microwave radiometers (K&Ka bands) mission was obtained in the Binggou watershed foci experimental area on Mar. 30, 2008. Those provide reliable data for retrieval of snow parameters and properties, especially for dry and wet snow identification. Observation items included: (1) Snow density, snow complex permittivity, snow volumetric moisture and snow gravimetric moisture by the snowfork in BG-A; (2) Snow parameters including snow depth, the snow surface temperature synchronizing with the airborne microwave radiometers (K&Ka bands), the snow layer temperature, the snow grain size and snow density in BG-A (10 points), BG-B (6 points), BG-F (12 points), BG-H (21 points) and BG-I (20 points); For each snow pit, the snowpack was divided into several layers with 10-cm intervals of snow depth. The layer depth (by the ruler), the snow grain size (by the handheld microscope), snow density (by the cutting ring) and the snow temperature (by the probe thermometer) were obtained at each snow pit. Two files including raw data and the preprocessed data were archived.

This dataset contains the flux measurements from site No.10 eddy covariance system (EC) in the flux observation matrix from 4 June to 17 September, 2012. The site (100.39572° E, 38.87567° N) was located in a cropland (maize surface) in Yingke irrigation district, which is near Zhangye, Gansu Province. The elevation is 1534.73 m. The EC was installed at a height of 4.8 m; the sampling rate was 10 Hz. The sonic anemometer faced north, and the separation distance between the sonic anemometer and the CO2/H2O gas analyzer (CSAT3&Li7500) was 0.17 m. Raw data acquired at 10 Hz were processed using the Edire post-processing software (University of Edinburgh, http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/abs/research/micromet/EdiRe/), including spike detection, lag correction of H2O/CO2 relative to the vertical wind component, sonic virtual temperature correction, coordinate rotation (2-D rotation), corrections for density fluctuation (Webb-Pearman-Leuning correction), and frequency response correction. The EC data were subsequently averaged over 30 min periods. Moreover, the observation data quality was divided into three classes according to the quality assessment method of stationarity (Δst) and the integral turbulent characteristics test (ITC), which was proposed by Foken and Wichura [1996]: class 1 (level 0: Δst<30 and ITC<30), class 2 (level 1: Δst<100 and ITC<100), and class 3 (level 2: Δst>100 and ITC>100), representing high-, medium-, and low-quality data, respectively. In addition to the above processing steps, the half-hourly flux data were screened in a four-step procedure: (1) data from periods of sensor malfunction were rejected; (2) data before or after 1 h of precipitation were rejected; (3) incomplete 30 min data were rejected when the missing data constituted more than 3% of the 30 min raw record; and (4) data were rejected at night when the friction velocity (u*) was less than 0.1 m/s. There were 48 records per day; the missing data were replaced with -6999. Moreover, suspicious data were marked in red. The released data contained the following variables: data/time, wind direction (Wdir, °), wind speed (Wnd, m/s), the standard deviation of the lateral wind (Std_Uy, m/s), virtual temperature (Tv, ℃), H2O mass density (H2O, g/m^3), CO2 mass density (CO2, mg/m^3), friction velocity (ustar, m/s), stability (z/L), sensible heat flux (Hs, W/m^2), latent heat flux (LE, W/m^2), carbon dioxide flux (Fc, mg/ (m^2s)), quality assessment of the sensible heat flux (QA_Hs), quality assessment of the latent heat flux (QA_LE), and quality assessment of the carbon flux (QA_Fc). In this dataset, the time of 0:30 corresponds to the average data for the period between 0:00 and 0:30; the data were stored in *.xlsx format. For more information, please refer to Liu et al. (2016) (for multi-scale observation experiment or sites information), Xu et al. (2013) (for data processing) in the Citation section.

Soil bulk density, porosity, water content, water characteristic curve, saturated hydraulic conductivity, particle analysis, infiltration rate, and sampling point location information in the upper reaches of the Heihe River Basin. 1. The data is for 2014 supplementary sampling for 2012, using the ring knife to take the original soil; 2. The soil bulk density is the dry bulk density of the soil and is measured by the drying method. The original ring-shaped soil sample collected in the field was thermostated at 105 ° C for 24 hours in an oven, and the soil dry weight was divided by the soil volume (100 cubic centimeters) , unit: g/cm 3 . 3. Soil porosity is obtained according to the relationship between soil bulk density and soil porosity; 4. Soil infiltration analysis data set, the data is the field experimental measurement data from 2013 to 2014. 5. The infiltration data is measured by “MINI DISK PORTABLE TENSION INFILTROMETER”, and the approximate saturated hydraulic conductivity under a certain negative pressure is obtained. 6. Soil particle size data was measured at the Grain Granulation Laboratory of the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education of Lanzhou University. The measuring instrument is a Malvern laser particle size analyzer MS2000. 7. The saturated hydraulic conductivity is measured according to the enamel hair self-made instrument of Yi Yanli (2009). The Marioot bottle was used to maintain the head during the experiment; at the same time, the Ks measured at the time was converted to the Ks value at 10 °C for analysis and calculation. 8. Soil water content data is measured using ECH2O, including 5 layers of soil water content and soil temperature. 9. The water characteristic curve is measured by the centrifuge method: the undisturbed soil of the ring cutter collected in the field is placed in a centrifuge, and each of the speeds is measured at 0, 310, 980, 1700, 2190, 2770, 3100, 5370, 6930, 8200, 11600. The secondary rotor weight is obtained.

30m month compositing Fraction Vegetation Cover (FVC) data set of Heihe River Basin provides the results of monthly FVC synthesis in 2011-2014. The data constructs multi-angle observation data sets by using China's domestic satellite HJ/CCD data with high temporal resolution (2 days after networking) and spatial resolution (30m) , and divides the country into different vegetation divisions and land types. The conversion coefficients of NDVI and FVC are calculated respectively, and use the calculated conversion coefficient lookup table and monthly compositing NDVI to produce the regional monthly compositing FVC products. The 30m month compositing FVC product in the Heihe River Basin can directly obtain the vegetation coverage ratio through high-resolution data, and mitigate the influence of low-resolution data heterogeneity; in addition, selecting the typical period of vegetation growth change, by fitting the vegetation index of each pixel time series to obtain the growth curve parameters that correspond to each pixel; then the land use map and the vegetation classification map are combined to find the representative uniform pixels of the region for training the conversion coefficients of the vegetation index. Compared with the ASTER reference FVC results, the 30m/month compositing FVC product in the Heihe River Basin is slightly higher than the ASTER reference result, but the overall deviation is not large, and the maximum value of the root mean square error (RMSE) of the product and the reference value is less than 0.175. In addition, compared with the ground survey data of Huailai experimental site in Hebei Province, the 30 m/month compositing FVC products generally reflect the seasonal variation of vegetation growth, and the deviation from the ground survey data is less than 0.1. At the same time, compared with the ground measurements of vegetation coverage in many watersheds in Northeast, North China and Southeast China, the overall error between the compositing FVC products and the ground measurements is less than 0.2. In all, the 30m/month compositing FVC data set of Heihe River Basin comprehensively utilizes multi-temporal and multi-angle remote sensing data to improve the estimation accuracy and time resolution of FVC parameter products, so as to better serve the application of remote sensing data products.

According to the sample survey data, in August 2013, 30 forest plots were set up in the Tianlaochi watershed, with a plot size of 10 m×20 m. The long side of the plot was parallel to the slope of the hillside, including 26 blocks of Picea crassifolia forest. 2 blocks of Sabina Przewalsskii forest and 2 mixed forests of Picea and Sabina. In the plot, the diameter of the breast of each tree (the diameter of the trunk at a height of 1.3 m) is measured by a diameter tape, and the height of each tree and the height under the branches (the height of the first live branch at the lower end of the canopy) is measured by a hand-held ultrasonic altimeter. The north-south direction and the east-west crown width are measured with a tape measure, and the sample site is positioned by differential GPS. The parallel version of HASM-AD algorithm is used to simulate the classified LIDAR point cloud data. DEM is generated from ground points, DSM is generated from all points, and the height of surface features is obtained by differential operation between DSM and DEM. In forest area, it is called Canopy Height Model (CHM). A circular window with a given search radius is used to find the local maximum value on CHM. If the central pixel value is the maximum value, it is determined as the crown vertex. The pixel attribute value of the tree vertex is the tree height, and the spatial resolution is 1m.