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Heated Distributed Temperature Sensing for Field Scale Soil Moisture Monitoring
Author(s) -
Striegl Arlen M.,
Loheide II Steven P.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6584.2012.00928.x
Subject(s) - scale (ratio) , environmental science , moisture , field (mathematics) , soil science , water content , remote sensing , materials science , geology , geotechnical engineering , geography , mathematics , composite material , cartography , pure mathematics
Characterizing both spatial and temporal soil moisture ( θ ) dynamics at site scales is difficult with existing technologies. To address this shortcoming, we developed a distributed soil moisture sensing system that employs a distributed temperature sensing system to monitor thermal response at 2 m intervals along the length of a buried cable which is subjected to heat pulses. The cable temperature response to heating, which is strongly dependent on soil moisture, was empirically related to colocated, dielectric‐based θ measurements at three locations. Spatially distributed, and temporally continuous estimates of θ were obtained in dry conditions ( θ ≤ 0.31) using this technology (root mean square error [RMSE] = 0.016), but insensitivity of the instrument response curve adversely affected accuracy under wet conditions (RMSE = 0.050).