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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Boise, Idaho » Northwest Watershed Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #242015
Title: Exploring soils and ecohydrological structure in small watersheds using electromagnetic induction

Author
item ROBINSON, DAVID - Utah State University
item ABDU, HIRUY - Utah State University
item Seyfried, Mark

Submitted to: Trans American Geophysical Union
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/1/2007
Publication Date: 12/1/2007
Citation: Robinson, D., Abdu, H., Seyfried, M.S. 2007. Exploring Soils and Ecohydrological Structure in Small Watersheds Using Electromagnetic Induction. EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 88(52) Fall Meeting Supplement, Abs.XXXXX-XX.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Soil moisture sensors generally strive to use the real permittivity as the basis for estimating soil water content from measured electrical properties of soil. It has been shown that a reasonably good general calibration can be developed for mineral soils on this basis. However, at the low measurement frequencies used by commercial sensors, there is considerable variability among soils. It has also been shown that, in general, inter-soil variability is related to the magnitude of the imaginary component. Thus, the overall calibration relationship could be improved if the imaginary component were incorporated. The problem has been that the imaginary component is highly temperature sensitive. We measured the real and imaginary components for different soils over a range of temperatures to investigate the possibility of improving calibration precision. We found that a general, a temperature corrected imaginary component could be established independent of water content. Given this, we were able to demonstrate a considerable calibration precision improvement over the general equation. We then demonstrated the use of this approach with field data.