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A New Soil Water and Bulk Electrical Conductivity Sensor Technology for Irrigation and Salinity Management

Abstract

Existing soil water content sensing systems based on electromagnetic (EM) properties of soils often over estimate and sometimes underestimate water content in saline and salt-affected soils due to severe interference from the soil bulk electrical conductivity (BEC), which varies strongly with temperature and which can vary greatly throughout an irrigation season and across a field. Many soil water sensors, especially those based on capacitance measurements, have been shown to be unsuitable in salt-affected or clayey soils (Evett et al., 2012a). The ability to measure both soil water content and BEC can be helpful for the management of irrigation and leaching regimes. Neutron probe is capable of accurately sensing water content in salt-affected soils but has the disadvantages of being: (1) labour-intensive, (2) not able to be left unattended in the field, (3) subject to onerous regulations, and (4) not able to sense salinity. The Waveguide-On-Access-Tube (WOAT) system based on time domain reflectometry (TDR) principles, recently developed by Evett et al. (2012) is a new promising technology. This system can be installed at below 3 m in 20-cm sensor segments to cover as much of the crop root zone as needed for irrigation management. It can also be installed to measure  More>>
Authors:
Evett, Steve; Schwartz, Robert; Casanova, Joaquin; [1]  Anderson, Scott [2] 
  1. Soil and Water Management Research Unit, Conservation and Production Research Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Bushland, Texas (United States)
  2. Acclima, Inc., 2260 East Commercial Street, Meridian, Idaho 83642 (United States)
Publication Date:
Jan 15, 2014
Product Type:
Miscellaneous
Report Number:
INIS-XA-14R0154
Resource Relation:
Other Information: 2 figs., refs.; Related Information: In: Soils Newsletter, Vol. 36, No. 2, January 2014| 32 p.
Subject:
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES; CAPACITANCE; CROPS; DROUGHT RESISTANCE; ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY; HUMIDITY; HYBRIDIZATION; IRRIGATION; ISOTOPE APPLICATIONS; LEACHING; NEUTRON PROBES; PLANT BREEDING; RESOURCE MANAGEMENT; SALINITY; SENSORS; SOILS; WATER; WATER USE; WATERSHEDS; WAVEGUIDES
OSTI ID:
22190326
Research Organizations:
Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Section, Vienna (Austria); FAO/IAEA Agriculture and Biotechnology Laboratory, Seibersdorf (Austria)
Country of Origin:
IAEA
Language:
English
Other Identifying Numbers:
Other: ISSN 1011-2529; TRN: XA14R0155014815
Availability:
Available from INIS in electronic form. Also available on-line: http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Newsletters/SNL-36-2.pdf; Web sites: http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/index.html; http://www.fao.org/ag/portal/index_en.html
Submitting Site:
INIS
Size:
page(s) 7-8
Announcement Date:
Feb 14, 2014

Citation Formats

Evett, Steve, Schwartz, Robert, Casanova, Joaquin, and Anderson, Scott. A New Soil Water and Bulk Electrical Conductivity Sensor Technology for Irrigation and Salinity Management. IAEA: N. p., 2014. Web.
Evett, Steve, Schwartz, Robert, Casanova, Joaquin, & Anderson, Scott. A New Soil Water and Bulk Electrical Conductivity Sensor Technology for Irrigation and Salinity Management. IAEA.
Evett, Steve, Schwartz, Robert, Casanova, Joaquin, and Anderson, Scott. 2014. "A New Soil Water and Bulk Electrical Conductivity Sensor Technology for Irrigation and Salinity Management." IAEA.
@misc{etde_22190326,
title = {A New Soil Water and Bulk Electrical Conductivity Sensor Technology for Irrigation and Salinity Management}
author = {Evett, Steve, Schwartz, Robert, Casanova, Joaquin, and Anderson, Scott}
abstractNote = {Existing soil water content sensing systems based on electromagnetic (EM) properties of soils often over estimate and sometimes underestimate water content in saline and salt-affected soils due to severe interference from the soil bulk electrical conductivity (BEC), which varies strongly with temperature and which can vary greatly throughout an irrigation season and across a field. Many soil water sensors, especially those based on capacitance measurements, have been shown to be unsuitable in salt-affected or clayey soils (Evett et al., 2012a). The ability to measure both soil water content and BEC can be helpful for the management of irrigation and leaching regimes. Neutron probe is capable of accurately sensing water content in salt-affected soils but has the disadvantages of being: (1) labour-intensive, (2) not able to be left unattended in the field, (3) subject to onerous regulations, and (4) not able to sense salinity. The Waveguide-On-Access-Tube (WOAT) system based on time domain reflectometry (TDR) principles, recently developed by Evett et al. (2012) is a new promising technology. This system can be installed at below 3 m in 20-cm sensor segments to cover as much of the crop root zone as needed for irrigation management. It can also be installed to measure the complete soil profile from the surface to below the root zone, allowing the measurement of crop water use and water use efficiency - knowledge of which is key for irrigation and farm management, and for the development of new drought tolerant and water efficient crop varieties and hybrids, as well as watershed and environmental management.}
place = {IAEA}
year = {2014}
month = {Jan}
}