Discriminating irrigation and rainfall with proximal gamma-ray spectroscopy

Abstract

We present a study of the performances of a proximal gamma-ray ground station based on a 7 months continuous acquisition, including 42 rain episodes and 16 irrigations. In particular, we demonstrate the reliability of the station in discriminating irrigations and rains through their peculiar gamma signals fingerprint. This proof of concept experiment shows that proximal gamma-ray spectroscopy can potentially fill the spatial gap between punctual and satellite soil water content measurements, as well as provide an unbiased approach for producing comprehensive irrigations maps.