Misura del contenuto idrico del suolo mediante impedenzometria in linee bifilari

The evaluation of soil water content is very important for agriculture management and environmental protection. The aim of this paper is to present a non destructive measurement method, for the evaluation of soil moisture. The method determines the dielectric permettivity using bifilar copper lines buried in the soil. The results show that the input impedance of the lines permits to determine dielectric permettivity which is related to soil moisture. Two experiments were carried out. During the first one, the system was calibrated at different frequencies to determine the relationship between dielectric permettivity and soil moisture. This relationship was validated during the second experiment. The correlation between estimated and measured values of soil moisture was good and significant. The application of this method can be used to obtain spatial average values of soil moisture