Monitoring near-surface soil water content using an innovative perforated cylinder coaxial dielectric sensor

Abstract Near-surface soil water content (NSWC) is an important parameter for characterizing hydrological processes, water and vapor exchange at the soil-atmosphere boundary, and potential biological productivity. Here we develop a dielectric based frequency-domain (FD) impedance sensor operating at 100 MHz, with a novel coaxial probe design and a temperature sensor embedded in the circuit board. This perforated cylinder coaxial (PCC) sensor provides simultaneous measurements of volumetric soil water content (VSWC) and of temperature. The temperature measurement allows signal correction for the temperature response of the circuit board and of the permittivity of soil water. We characterize the performance of the PCC sensor and compare it with alternative 3-pin- and 2-pin-electrode FD impedance sensors each using a similarly performing circuit board. A series of theoretical analyses and experiments were conducted, including (i) sensors calibration, (ii) temperature effects and their correction, (iii) soil volume sensed by each sensor through simulation analysis and a stepwise soil removal (SSR) test and (iv) accuracy comparison of the three sensors when applied for the NSWC measurements. The calibration results verified that the PCC, 3-pin and 2-pin probes were suitable to measure VSWC (RMSE ≤ 0.0142 cm3 cm−3). The simulation analysis using High Frequency Structure Simulator software (HFSS) indicated that the novel PCC probe had a symmetrical distribution of the E-field, wholly contained within the cylinder, avoiding leakage of the E-Field into air at the soil-atmosphere interface and removing the dependency of sensed volume on VSWC. The results of the SSR test showed that the E-field distributed outside the receiving electrode of the PCC probe could be ignored whereas that of both pin-type electrodes was distributed outside of the receiving electrode to a distance that depended on VSWC (i.e. up to 8 mm for 3-pin and up to 11 mm for 2-pin designs when VSWC > 0.17 cm3 cm−3), which corresponds to the simulation analysis. Moreover, the new PCC probe provided more accurate NSWC measurement than 3-pin or 2-pin probes because the E-field was contained within the perforated cylinder, avoiding E-field leakage and fixing sensed soil volume independent of VSWC. The pin-structure probes appear to perform best when installed horizontally in the soil at least 11 mm below the surface.