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SOIL PHYSICS NOTES

Improved Analysis of Heat Pulse Signals for Soil Water Flux Determination

Dep. of Agronomy, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS 66506

T. E. Ochsner

USDA-ARS, Soil and Water Management Research Unit, St. Paul, MN

R. Horton

Dep. of Agronomy, Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA

^* Corresponding author (gjk{at}ksu.edu).

Soil water flux (J) can be estimated from the velocity (V) of a pulse of heat introduced into the soil. Here we consider a method in which V is measured with a three-probe sensor. The center probe heats the soil, and the outer probes measure temperature increases downstream (T_d) and upstream (T_u) from the heater. An equation was recently proposed for approximating J from the ratio T_d/T_u. In this note we show that the accuracy of this equation can be improved by adding a term to correct for the time dependence of T_d/T_u. This term is simple to evaluate and requires no additional measurements. Example calculations (three cases) are used to evaluate improvement in accuracy. When T_d/T_u is measured at a time of 45 s, relative errors in flux estimates are reduced from 10.5, 2.6, and –10.5% to 0.23, 0.06, and –0.23%, respectively, by using the correction term.

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