Soil moisture is the land surface hydrologic variable that most strongly affects land-atmosphere moisture and energy fluxes such as evaporative heat flux, and phase change in freezing or thawing of wet soil. Field measurementsofsoilmoisturehavebeencollectedontheNorthSlope of Alaska, with emphasis on establishing macroscale and microscale topographic influences. Sites were installed in the foothill regions and on the coastal plain of the Kuparuk River basin. Preliminary results indicate that macrotopographic gradients greatly influence the importance of lateral versus vertical fluxes. Microtopographic differences affect the small-scale spatial differences in soil moisture but have less impact on flux direction. Soil moisture dynamics are controlledprimarily byrecent weather, topographicposition,and presence or absence of permafrost; however, these dynamics are also markedly influenced by temperature and soil type [Luthin and Guymon, 1974]. [12] In relatively flat areas, where the ice-rich frozen layer is near the surface, soil moisture content is usually quite high. These areas have relatively high evapotranspiration and sensible heat transfer but low conductive heat transfer owing to the insulating properties of thick organic soils. As the active layer thickens throughout the summer, its capacity to store water increases, resulting in a time-varying basin response to storm events [Bolton et al., 2000]. In some cases, the surficial soil may become drier when permafrost degrades and subsurface drainage improves. Thermokarst formation can lead to very high soil moisture levels in the bottom of the thermokarst structure and can cause drastic drying at the surface of the adjacent land.