If you mark the location by a stick or some other protruding object, then standard GPS locations may be sufficient. However, if you bury it, then you may need to use a differential GPS or some other highly accurate location method, otherwise you run the risk of losing the instrument. Furthermore, if you use very dense node deployments, then standard GPS locations may not be accurate enough to make the recorded data as useful as you might have hoped.

In general, you get much better signal to noise ratios if you bury the node, since it reduces wind noise and noise caused by temperature variations. So where possible, this is strongly recommended. However, the on-board GPS has limitations, so you cannot bury it too deeply, although this depends on soil type. Wet clay is the worst, while dry sand is the best.

One nice thing about nodes is that they can be easily hidden and the presence of vegetation that would rule out the use of solar panels is unlikely to be an issue. However, they are still subject to noise sources such as nearby roads, and their deployment in saturated ground or areas subject to flooding is not recommended. Furthermore, if deploying in urban environments or places with significant population densities, then give careful consideration to the possibility that some curious person might dig up the node and throw it in the bin (which has happened before!).