Horizontal monitoring of soil water content using a novel automated and mobile electromagnetic access-tube sensor

Summary Advances in sensor technology continue to provide new and significant benefits to agriculture. An innovative approach for observing soil water dynamics in the subsurface is introduced using a mobile electromagnetic sensor prototype traveling through a horizontal PVC access tube. A series of tests for evaluating the prototype were designed and conducted to (i) determine the sensor’s area of sensitivity (AOS), (ii) measure varied levels of soil water content along the tube and (iii) track temporal changes in soil water content under; (a) two drippers on a horizontal- and (b) multiple drippers on a sloped-soil surface (i.e., 6° slope). The AOS experiment suggested the sensor’s fringing field extends to a radius of 5.5 cm from the pipe wall yielding an AOS of 181.3 cm 2 . Measured step-wise changes in soil water content along the tube were highly correlated to those of extracted core samples ( R 2  = 0.99 and RMSE = 0.012 cm 3  cm −3 ). The drip emitter tests illustrated spatial hydrodynamics of water infiltration around the access tube. These results illustrate potential applications for this sensing approach, yielding one-dimensional monitoring of soil water along a horizontal line in the root zone or deeper subsurface. Future developments should explore performance in longer and potentially curvilinear pipes for environmental and engineering applications.