The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) instrumented the Agua Salud (AS) Experimental Catchments as part of an ongoing series of land‐cover related experiments in the steep, saprolitic, lowland, seasonal tropics of central Panama. The sites include tree plantations, rotational grazed pastures, native forests from 10 to over 80 years old, and a monoculture grassland. This data note provides a brief description of the instrumented catchments, rainfall and discharge data collection methods, data processing, and online availability.

Amidst changing climates, understanding the world’s water resources is of increasing importance. In Ontario, Canada, low water conditions are currently assessed using only precipitation and watershed-based stream gauges by the Conservation Authorities in Ontario and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. Regional groundwater-storage changes in Ontario are not currently measured using satellite data by research institutes. In this study, contributions from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data are compared to a hydrogeological database covering southern Ontario from 2003 to 2013, to determine the suitability of GRACE total water storage estimates for monitoring groundwater storage in this location. Terrestrial water storage data from GRACE were used to determine monthly groundwater storage (GWS) anomaly values. GWS values were also determined by multiplying groundwater-level elevations (from the Provincial Groundwater Monitoring Network wells) by specific yield. Comparisons of GRACE-derived GWS to well-based GWS data determined that GRACE is sufficiently sensitive to obtain a meaningful signal in southern Ontario. Results show that GWS values produced by GRACE are useful for identifying regional changes in groundwater storage in areas with limited available hydrogeological characterization data. Results also indicate that GRACE may have an ability to forecast changes in groundwater storage, which will become useful when monitoring climate shifts in the near future.

The affiliation of Daniel Strasser is hereby corrected to: Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW), Kussmaulstraße 17, 76187 Karlsruhe, Germany