How to match a sensor_positions.csv entry with a NEON location

[jirikadlec2]

In my project working with NEON soil temperature and water content data, the information about soil sensor location and depth is important.
When I download data for a specific site, product and month via the API, there is a sensor_positions.csv file. For example: site Dead Lake (DELA), product DP1.00041.001, month 2018-09 has 32 entries in file NEON.D08.DELA.DP1.00041.001.sensor_positions.20181106T192857Z.csv:

HOR.VER,xOffset,yOffset,zOffset,pitch,roll,azimuth,referenceLatitude,referenceLongitude,referenceElevation
001.501,3.02,4.90,-0.02,2.50,0.00,0.00,32.541770,-87.804284,24.04
001.502,3.02,4.90,-0.06,2.50,0.00,0.00,32.541770,-87.804284,24.04
001.503,3.02,4.90,-0.16,2.50,0.00,0.00,32.541770,-87.804284,24.04
....
005.505,4.93,3.28,-0.47,0.00,0.00,1.00,32.541013,-87.805900,24.27
....

From the locations API, I can browse to locations such as: http://data.neonscience.org/api/v0/locations/DELA -> SOILAR100543 -> SOILPL100546 -> SOILTP108242 ->CFGLOC108243 with location description "Dead Lake Soil Temp Profile SP5, Z5 Depth". However, it is not clear which HOR.VER code corresponds to CFGLOC108243.

Given a HOR.VER location index from sensor_positions.csv (for example 005.505), Is there a way to automatically identify a matching NEON location provided by the /locations/ API (for example CFGLOC108243)?

In a future version of the API, would it be possible to include the location name (for example "CFGLOC108243") as another column in sensor_positions.csv? that would solve my issue.

Any workaround suggestion how to match a HOR.VER sensor_positions.csv entry with a CFGLOC.... name from the /locations/ API response would be very much appreciated!

[cklunch]

@jirikadlec2 Unfortunately this isn't totally straightforward! The explanation for the HOR.VER codes can be found in the Data Product Numbering document, here

Using the info in that document, you can make the mapping by extracting the SP5 (HOR=005) and Z5 (VER=505) from the description.

In the next few months, we're going to be adding to the geoNEON package, which currently only has methods for observational data. We'll be adding functionality for getting sensor location info, hopefully more smoothly than you can get by using the API directly. But for now, the sensor_positions file is the most user-friendly source of sensor location info.