{"title":"Gamma radiation for the estimation of mineral soil water content in a boreal forest","authors":"Mathieu Gélinas, Sylvain Jutras","doi":"10.1139/cjss-2023-0101","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Continuous monitoring of water quantities in different soil horizons is necessary to understand the behavior of infiltrated water in the soil. Under certain conditions, using measurements of natural ground gamma radiation can help us estimate soil water content measurements over a 100 m2 surface within a 15 cm depth. A CS725 sensor can provide up to four daily estimates of soil water content by detecting the natural emission of gamma radiation. However, in boreal forest environments, gamma radiation mitigated by the water in the thick humus layers (LFH horizon) can bias in the underlying mineral soil water content measurements. The objective of this research was to evaluate the accuracy of methods that incorporate variables describing the surface humus layer into calculations of the underlying mineral soil water content, by measuring the soil's natural gamma emission with the CS725. Using raw gamma radiation values obtained by CS725 sensors deployed over various boreal soils, we tested two functions. The first one included variables describing the humus layer and the other excluded these variables (manufacturer’s method). The function that included the descriptive humus layer variables showed superior results compared to the function without. The results of this study suggest that the CS725 sensor can adequately estimate mineral soil water content within ± 10% absolute of the reference water content when examined with the following humus variables: humus layer thickness, factioned composition, bulk density, and linear gamma radiation attenuation.","PeriodicalId":9384,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Soil Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Soil Science","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1139/cjss-2023-0101","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"SOIL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Continuous monitoring of water quantities in different soil horizons is necessary to understand the behavior of infiltrated water in the soil. Under certain conditions, using measurements of natural ground gamma radiation can help us estimate soil water content measurements over a 100 m2 surface within a 15 cm depth. A CS725 sensor can provide up to four daily estimates of soil water content by detecting the natural emission of gamma radiation. However, in boreal forest environments, gamma radiation mitigated by the water in the thick humus layers (LFH horizon) can bias in the underlying mineral soil water content measurements. The objective of this research was to evaluate the accuracy of methods that incorporate variables describing the surface humus layer into calculations of the underlying mineral soil water content, by measuring the soil's natural gamma emission with the CS725. Using raw gamma radiation values obtained by CS725 sensors deployed over various boreal soils, we tested two functions. The first one included variables describing the humus layer and the other excluded these variables (manufacturer’s method). The function that included the descriptive humus layer variables showed superior results compared to the function without. The results of this study suggest that the CS725 sensor can adequately estimate mineral soil water content within ± 10% absolute of the reference water content when examined with the following humus variables: humus layer thickness, factioned composition, bulk density, and linear gamma radiation attenuation.
期刊介绍:
The Canadian Journal of Soil Science is an international peer-reviewed journal published in cooperation with the Canadian Society of Soil Science. The journal publishes original research on the use, management, structure and development of soils and draws from the disciplines of soil science, agrometeorology, ecology, agricultural engineering, environmental science, hydrology, forestry, geology, geography and climatology. Research is published in a number of topic sections including: agrometeorology; ecology, biological processes and plant interactions; composition and chemical processes; physical processes and interfaces; genesis, landscape processes and relationships; contamination and environmental stewardship; and management for agricultural, forestry and urban uses.