Capmes is an instrument capable of measuring the water level and the concentration of suspended matter in rivers with a time step going from one measurement every hour at low flow to one measurement every 2 minutes during a flood. The instrument, designed by IPGP, is based on the use of a LISST-25X optical sensor (Sequoia Scientific Inc.) [Limare et al., 2010; Lajeunesse et al., 2011]. The latter is incorporated in a complex hydraulic and electronic system controlled by a datalogger. As a result, it functions as s stand-alone instrument capable of 1) performing long surveys with a minimum human intervention and 2) acquiring data even under extreme climatic events. This instrument was developed and tested during a 1.5 years field survey performed from June 2008 to January 2010 on the Capesterre river located on Basse-Terre island (Guadeloupe archipelago, Lesser Antilles Arc).

The dataset contains the meteorological data acquired by a paired-station setup (one station under forest cover and the other one in a nearby clearing) at Bernadouze (elevation 1450 m, Ariège, France) since September 2013 at half hourly time step. The variables include: incoming and outgoing short and long wave radiations, air temperature and humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction, snow depth and surface soil moisture.

We used a Lisst-StreamSide (Sequoia Scientific, Inc.) to monitor the suspended load concentration in the Capesterre river from July 2010 7/10/2010 to August 2012. This instrument is a laser particle sizer specifically designed for monitoring shallow rivers, streams, or ponds. The LISST-StreamSide measures the suspended particle size and concentration in 32 logarithmically spaced size classes. The upper size in each size class is 1.1809 times the lower size.