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Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions

There is a gap between lab experiments where resistivity–soil moisture relations are generally very good and field studies in complex environmental settings where relations are always less good and complicated by many factors. An experiment was designed where environmental settings are more controll...

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Autores principales: de Jong, Steven M., Heijenk, Renée A., Nijland, Wiebe, van der Meijde, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32957480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20185313
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author de Jong, Steven M.
Heijenk, Renée A.
Nijland, Wiebe
van der Meijde, Mark
author_facet de Jong, Steven M.
Heijenk, Renée A.
Nijland, Wiebe
van der Meijde, Mark
author_sort de Jong, Steven M.
collection PubMed
description There is a gap between lab experiments where resistivity–soil moisture relations are generally very good and field studies in complex environmental settings where relations are always less good and complicated by many factors. An experiment was designed where environmental settings are more controlled, the best outside laboratory, to assess the transferability from lab to outdoor. A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the use of electric resistivity tomography (ERT) for monitoring soil moisture dynamics over a period of 67 days. A homogeneous site in the central part of The Netherlands was selected consisting of grass pasture on an aeolian sand soil profile. ERT values were correlated to gravimetric soil moisture samples for five depths at three different dates. Correlations ranged from 0.43 to 0.73 and were best for a soil depth of 90 cm. Resistivity patterns over time (time-lapse ERT) were analyzed and related to rainfall events where rainfall infiltration patterns could be identified. Duplicate ERT measurements showed that the noise level of the instrument and measurements is low and generally below 3% for the soil profile below the mixed layer but above the groundwater. Although the majority of the measured resistivity patterns could be well explained, some artefacts and dynamics were more difficult to clarify, even so in this homogeneous field situation. The presence of an oak tree with its root structure and a ditch with surface water with higher conductivity may have an impact on the resistivity pattern in the soil profile and over time. We conclude that ERT allows for detailed spatial measurement of local soil moisture dynamics resulting from precipitation although field experiments do not yield accuracies similar to laboratory experiments. ERT approaches are suitable for detailed spatial analyses where probe or sample-based methods are limited in reach or repeatability.
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spelling pubmed-75705262020-10-28 Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions de Jong, Steven M. Heijenk, Renée A. Nijland, Wiebe van der Meijde, Mark Sensors (Basel) Article There is a gap between lab experiments where resistivity–soil moisture relations are generally very good and field studies in complex environmental settings where relations are always less good and complicated by many factors. An experiment was designed where environmental settings are more controlled, the best outside laboratory, to assess the transferability from lab to outdoor. A field experiment was carried out to evaluate the use of electric resistivity tomography (ERT) for monitoring soil moisture dynamics over a period of 67 days. A homogeneous site in the central part of The Netherlands was selected consisting of grass pasture on an aeolian sand soil profile. ERT values were correlated to gravimetric soil moisture samples for five depths at three different dates. Correlations ranged from 0.43 to 0.73 and were best for a soil depth of 90 cm. Resistivity patterns over time (time-lapse ERT) were analyzed and related to rainfall events where rainfall infiltration patterns could be identified. Duplicate ERT measurements showed that the noise level of the instrument and measurements is low and generally below 3% for the soil profile below the mixed layer but above the groundwater. Although the majority of the measured resistivity patterns could be well explained, some artefacts and dynamics were more difficult to clarify, even so in this homogeneous field situation. The presence of an oak tree with its root structure and a ditch with surface water with higher conductivity may have an impact on the resistivity pattern in the soil profile and over time. We conclude that ERT allows for detailed spatial measurement of local soil moisture dynamics resulting from precipitation although field experiments do not yield accuracies similar to laboratory experiments. ERT approaches are suitable for detailed spatial analyses where probe or sample-based methods are limited in reach or repeatability. MDPI 2020-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC7570526/ /pubmed/32957480 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20185313 Text en © 2020 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
de Jong, Steven M.
Heijenk, Renée A.
Nijland, Wiebe
van der Meijde, Mark
Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title_full Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title_fullStr Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title_full_unstemmed Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title_short Monitoring Soil Moisture Dynamics Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography under Homogeneous Field Conditions
title_sort monitoring soil moisture dynamics using electrical resistivity tomography under homogeneous field conditions
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7570526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32957480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s20185313
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