This paper presents a data set that describes the spatial and temporal variability of soil moisture within the 6 ha Nerrigundah catchment, located in a temperate region of eastern Australia. The data set includes high-resolution elevation data; high-resolution (20 m) near-surface soil moisture maps; soil moisture profile measurements at 13 locations, with one being applicable for one-dimensional modeling; soil moisture measurements from four different measurement devices at a single location; soil temperature profile measurements; soil heat flux and supporting meteorological measurements, including data obtained with two pluviometers and four collecting rain gauges; surface roughness measurements; soil information for 19 locations, including field measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity; and catchment runoff measurements. These data are available on the World Wide Web at http://www.civag.unimelb.edu.au/~jwalker/data/nerrigundah. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union