Monitoraggio del contenuto idrico del suolo mediante impedenzometria in linee bifilari

Quantitative and qualitative monitoring of soil moisture is fundamental for agriculture management and environmental protection. Currently the most diffused methods to measure soil water content allow only "punctual" measurements and therefore problems of data spatialization arise when it is necessary to know the moisture of large volumes of soil. In this chapter a non destructive measurement method is described for the evaluation of soil moisture. The method requires the use of a copper bifilar line (buried in the soil) to measure the dielectric permettivity of the soil. The results presented show that the input impedance of the line allows determination of the dielectric permettivity of the soil, which is in turn, related to soil moisture. A significant correlation is observed between estimated values of soil moisture, by means of impedance measurements, and measured values, obtained with the gravimetric method. The application of this methodology can be used to obtain average values of soil moisture for large areas.