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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #417754
Research Project: From Field to Watershed: Enhancing Water Quality and Management in Agroecosystems through Remote Sensing, Ground Measurements, and Integrative Modeling

Location: Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory

Title: USDA LTAR Common Experiment measurement: Soil water content

Author
item Cosh, Michael
item BAFFAUT, CLAIRE - Columbia College

Submitted to: Protocols.io
Publication Type: Research Notes
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/3/2024
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: This protocol is part of a larger set published at protocols.io for the LTAR Common Experiment. This protocol outlines how to measure soil water content. This measurement is important to agriculture because it quantifies the available water for plant production. The goal is to provide repeatable guidelines to achieve consistent data collection, instrument maintenance, data processing, and quality control for obtaining these data at cropland sites across the U.S.

Technical Abstract: Soil water content, also known as soil moisture, is commonly defi ned as the volume of water per volume of soil (volumetric soil water content). Gravimetric soil water content is the weight of water per weight of soil. For most purposes, we speak of volumetric water content in the units of m3/m3. Soil water content usually refers to the water contained within the vadose zone of the surface soil layer. Soil water content below the saturated water content of the soil usually ranges from 0-0.5 m3/m3.