Because of its ability to coordinate vast amounts of information in space, GIS is a necessary tool in the analysis of soil moisture variability. It's craving for disk space, however, requires that the user be educated in the exact nature of the files being created and downloaded so as to make the most of the drive space available. For instance, .shp files take up less room than coverages and should be used when possible.
In the future, I plan to use GIS to analyze temporal as well as spatial variations in soil moisture. I also plan to continue to build the GIS database on the Little Washita so that I can use all the information available to me to study the variations of soil moisture over a watershed.
If one completely understands the processes that are occurring at the land surface, it should be possible to pinpoint the variables affecting the variation of soil moisture. More focused field experiments and analysis will improve the validity of soil moisture parameters used in climate models.
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If you have comments or suggestions, email me at jdev@mail.utexas.edu