A critical review of soil moisture measurement

作者：Lekshmi Susha S U; Singh D N^*; Baghini Maryam Shojaei

来源：Measurement, 2014, 54: 92-105.

DOI：10.1016/j.measurement.2014.04.007

• Soils
• Moisture content
• Measurement techniques
• Advance instrumentation
• Nano-sensors

Soil moisture content has paramount importance in dictating engineering, agronomic, geological, ecological, biological and hydrological characteristics of the soil mass. Though earlier researchers have employed various techniques of moisture content determination of soils, both in laboratory and in situ conditions, ascertaining the applicability of these techniques to soils of entirely different characteristics and the 'types of moisture content', which they can measure, is still a point of debate. As such, a critical review of all the established and emerging soil moisture measurement techniques with respect to their merits and demerits becomes necessary. With this in view, efforts have been made in this paper to critically evaluate all the soil moisture measurement techniques, limitations associated with them and the influence of various soil-specific parameters (viz., mineralogy, salinity, porosity, ambient temperature, presence of the organic matter and matrix structure of the soil) on the measured soil moisture content. This paper also highlights the importance of various innovations based on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and nano-sensors that are emerging in this context.

• 出版日期2014-8