Campus Units

Agronomy

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

2007

Journal or Book Title

Soil Science Society of America Journal

Volume

71

Issue

1

First Page

53

Last Page

55

DOI

10.2136/sssaj2006.0073N

Abstract

Soil water flux (J) can be estimated from the velocity (V) of a pulse of heat introduced into the soil. Here we consider a method in which V is measured with a three-probe sensor. The center probe heats the soil, and the outer probes measure temperature increases downstream (T d) and upstream (T u) from the heater. An equation was recently proposed for approximating J from the ratio T d/T u In this note we show that the accuracy of this equation can be improved by adding a term to correct for the time dependence of T d/T u This term is simple to evaluate and requires no additional measurements. Example calculations (three cases) are used to evaluate improvement in accuracy. When T d/T u is measured at a time of 45 s, relative errors in flux estimates are reduced from 10.5, 2.6, and −10.5% to 0.23, 0.06, and −0.23%, respectively, by using the correction term.

Comments

This article is published as Kluitenberg, G. J., T. E. Ochsner, and Robert Horton. "Improved analysis of heat pulse signals for soil water flux determination." Soil Science Society of America Journal 71, no. 1 (2007): 53-55. doi: 10.2136/sssaj2006.0073N. Posted with permission.

Rights

Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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