The Potential Analysis on Soil Moisture Measurement by Dielectric Method

Radio frequency, microwave frequency dielectric method is an important way to measure soil moisture. But its adaptability to variation of field soil physical and chemical properties has not been studied so far. In this paper, using the data of several, typical soil physical and chemical properties, the variation of soil dielectric constant (ε_s) is analyzed, and the influence of the soil bulk density, physical and chemical property, temperature and instrumental error to dielectric measurement is studied. It is concluded that the dielectric method is more adaptable and more precise for soil moisture content measurement than many other methods.