Application of the TDR Sensor and the Parameters of Injection Irrigation for the Estimation of Soil Evaporation Intensity

Abstract

The objective of the study was to develop a precise method of determination of the evaporation rate in a soil irrigated with the use of a mobile injection irrigation system. Two methods of constructing functions approximating the value of evaporation have been developed. In the first method, the domain comprises the parameters of injection irrigation, i.e., the dose and the depth of injection, and in the second, the volumetric moisture of soil in the layer immediately below the soil surface, which was measured with time-domain reflectometry (TDR) sensors. For that purpose, a laboratory experiment was carried out, based on 12 physical models. The study was conducted on a natural soil material, with particle size distribution of its mineral parts corresponding to that of a loamy sand soil. It was demonstrated that evaporation intensity increases with irrigation and decreases with increase in the depth of water application. Using TDR sensors, it was also shown that evaporation intensity increases proportionally to the weighted arithmetic mean of the volumetric moisture. Comparison of the two methods indicates that the evaporation intensity of injection-irrigated soil can be estimated with higher accuracy when the domain of the approximating function is the injection depth and dose than when the domain of the function is the weighted mean of volumetric moisture of the surface horizon of the soil. However, the method using TDR sensors for the estimation of evaporation intensity of an injection-irrigated soil has a greater potential for the construction of universal approximating models. In addition, the advantage of the method based on the use of TDR sensors is that it uses arguments for the approximating function, f2(θ˜), in real time.