[1] We explore and review the value of soil moisture measurements in vadose zone hydrology with a focus on the field and catchment scales. This review is motivated by the increasing ability to measure soil moisture with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution across scales. We highlight and review the state of the art in using soil moisture measurements for (1) estimation of soil hydrauli...

Since its introduction in 1940, the plaster of Paris block method of measuring soil moisture by means of electrical resistance (4) has been widely employed in agricultural fields. Hydrologic research2 (16), war production problems involving guayule culture (11, 12), and many other investigations ranging from field irrigation to greenhouse studies have made use of this technique. Briefly, the me...

Based on ERS-1/2 scatterometer data from 1992 to 2000, work carried out at the Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (Vienna University of Technology) resulted in a multi-year, global, remotely sensed soil moisture dataset. An exciting aspect of these developments is that the ERS scatterometer instrument finds an operational continuation in ASCAT, the Advanced Scatterometer onboard the...

A technique based on microwave sensing technologies has been developed which provides a means of estimating the average moisture content across a stack of timber during kiln drying. The microwave sensor, which comprises of a linear array of slots excited from both ends, was developed and trialed under a range of standard commercial kiln drying schedules using 100mm x 50mm Pinus radiata sample b...

Drought is one of the most important but least understood issues in global environmental changes. Decrease in soil moisture is an indicator of drought. Here, we analyze summer (June–August) soil moisture measurement data across 50 sites in China in order to investigate the linkage between climate change and drought. At the country scale, a significant decrease in summer soil moisture in the top...

Corresponding Author: Kok Yeow You, Department of Radio Communication Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Email: [email protected] Abstract: Determining the Moisture Content (MC) inside rice grain is an important element for grain processesing such as harvesting, storage, quality control and transportation. A microstrip wide-ring sensor and a m...

Photothermal methods constitute a convenient approach for the nondestructive quality control of industrial materials because they are rapid and noninvasive. One such application is the monitoring of moisture in unseasoned lumber for drying mill process control. This paper describes a photothermal method for the analysis of moisture in wood by measuring its surface temperature rise under laser r...

This paper presents a comparison and an evaluation of five soil moisture products based on satellite-based passive and active microwave measurements. Products are evaluated for 2005–2006 against ground measurements obtained from the soil moisture network deployed in Mali (Sahel) in the framework of the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis project. It is shown that the accuracy of the soil...

A key state variable in land surface–atmosphere interactions is soil moisture, which affects surface energy fluxes, runoff and the radiation balance. Soil moisture modelling relies on parameter estimates that are inadequately measured at the necessarily fine model scales. Hence, model soil moisture estimates are imperfect and often drift away from reality through simulation time. Because of its...

A refined hybrid polarimetric decomposition and inversion method for soil moisture estimation under vegetation is investigated for its potential to retrieve soil moisture from vegetated soils in TERENO observatories. The refined algorithm is applied on Lband fully polarimetric data acquired by DLR’s novel F-SAR sensor. Two flight and field measurement campaigns were conducted in 2011 and 2012 f...