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Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor
Forest duff (fermentation and humus) water content is an important parameter for fire risk prediction and water resource management. However, accurate determination of forest duff water content is difficult due to its loose structure. This study evaluates the feasibility of a standing wave ratio (SW...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5855064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29470428 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18020647 |
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author | Yan, Xiaofei Zhao, Yajie Cheng, Qiang Zheng, Xiaoliang Zhao, Yandong |
author_facet | Yan, Xiaofei Zhao, Yajie Cheng, Qiang Zheng, Xiaoliang Zhao, Yandong |
author_sort | Yan, Xiaofei |
collection | PubMed |
description | Forest duff (fermentation and humus) water content is an important parameter for fire risk prediction and water resource management. However, accurate determination of forest duff water content is difficult due to its loose structure. This study evaluates the feasibility of a standing wave ratio (SWR) sensor to accurately determine the forest duff water content. The performance of this sensor was tested on fermentation and humus with eight different compaction levels. Meanwhile, a commercialized time domain reflectometry (TDR) was employed for comparison. Calibration results showed that there were strong linear relationships between the volumetric water content (θ(V)) and the SWR sensor readings (V(SWR)) at different compaction classes for both fermentation and humus samples. The sensor readings of both SWR and TDR underestimated the forest duff water content at low compacted levels, proving that the compaction of forest duff could significantly affect the measurement accuracy of both sensors. Experimental data also showed that the accuracy of the SWR sensor was higher than that of TDR according to the root mean square error (RMSE). Furthermore, low cost is another important advantage of the SWR sensor in comparison with TDR. This low-cost SWR sensor performs well in loose materials and is feasible for evaluating the water content of forest duff. In addition, the results indicate that decomposition of the forest duff should be taken into account for continuous and long-term water content measurement. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5855064 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-58550642018-03-20 Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor Yan, Xiaofei Zhao, Yajie Cheng, Qiang Zheng, Xiaoliang Zhao, Yandong Sensors (Basel) Article Forest duff (fermentation and humus) water content is an important parameter for fire risk prediction and water resource management. However, accurate determination of forest duff water content is difficult due to its loose structure. This study evaluates the feasibility of a standing wave ratio (SWR) sensor to accurately determine the forest duff water content. The performance of this sensor was tested on fermentation and humus with eight different compaction levels. Meanwhile, a commercialized time domain reflectometry (TDR) was employed for comparison. Calibration results showed that there were strong linear relationships between the volumetric water content (θ(V)) and the SWR sensor readings (V(SWR)) at different compaction classes for both fermentation and humus samples. The sensor readings of both SWR and TDR underestimated the forest duff water content at low compacted levels, proving that the compaction of forest duff could significantly affect the measurement accuracy of both sensors. Experimental data also showed that the accuracy of the SWR sensor was higher than that of TDR according to the root mean square error (RMSE). Furthermore, low cost is another important advantage of the SWR sensor in comparison with TDR. This low-cost SWR sensor performs well in loose materials and is feasible for evaluating the water content of forest duff. In addition, the results indicate that decomposition of the forest duff should be taken into account for continuous and long-term water content measurement. MDPI 2018-02-22 /pmc/articles/PMC5855064/ /pubmed/29470428 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18020647 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Yan, Xiaofei Zhao, Yajie Cheng, Qiang Zheng, Xiaoliang Zhao, Yandong Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title | Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title_full | Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title_fullStr | Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title_full_unstemmed | Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title_short | Determining Forest Duff Water Content Using a Low-Cost Standing Wave Ratio Sensor |
title_sort | determining forest duff water content using a low-cost standing wave ratio sensor |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5855064/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29470428 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s18020647 |
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