A popular retrofit option is to install an exterior insulation finish system to the walls of existing buildings. This study evaluates the thermal and moisture performance of such a system with a vented wall assembly. In addition to being a case study, this field monitoring was intended to verify computation methods of building envelope performance. The long term monitoring was designed to be no...

Two solutions for UHF RFID tags for soil moisture sensing were designed and are described in this paper. In the first, two conventional tags (standard transponders) are employed: one, placed close to the soil surface, is the sensor tag, while the other, separated from the soil, is the reference for system calibration. By transmission power ramps, the tag's turn-on power levels are measured and ...

The continuity of soil moisture time series data is crucial for climatic research. Yet, a common problem for continuous data series is the changing of sensors, not only as replacements are necessary, but as technologies evolve. The Illinois Climate Network has one of the longest data records of soil moisture; yet, it has a discontinuity when the primary sensor (neutron probes) was replaced with...

A new approach to downscaling soil moisture forecasts from the seasonal ensemble prediction forecasting system of the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) is presented in this study. Soil moisture forecasts from this system are rarely used nowadays, although they could provide valuable information. Weaknesses of the model soil scheme in forecasting soil water content and t...

This paper presents a system to estimate soil moisture through the reading of standard Ultra High Frequency (UHF) passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that can be buried in the soil, allowing wireless moisture measurement without the need of using batteries in the field for long periods. In the proposed system, one or more passive EPC/GEN2 tags acts as sensors buried in the soil. ...

Soil moisture is a key variable in dryland ecosystems since it determines the occurrence and duration of vegetation water stress and affects the development of weather patterns including rainfall. However, the lack of ground observations of soil moisture and rainfall dynamics in many drylands has long been a major obstacle in understanding ecohydrological processes in these ecosystems. It is al...

[1] To make use of satellite microwave observations for estimating soil moisture, a dual‐pass land data assimilation system (DLDAS) is developed in this paper by incorporating a dual‐pass assimilation framework into the Community Land Model version 3 (CLM3). In the DLDAS, the model state (volumetric soil moisture content) and model parameters are jointly optimized using the gridded Advanced Mic...

Recent advances in polymer composites have led to new, multifunctional wound dressings that can greatly improve healing processes, but assessing the moisture status of underlying site still requires frequent visual inspection. Moisture is a key mediator tissue regeneration and it has long been recognised there an opportunity for smart systems provide quantitative information such dressing selec...