Soil Water Assessment By The Neutron Method

Application in agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Science. Neutron moisture meter theory. Instrument design. Accuracy, bias and precision. Calibration. Field installation and maintenance. Site selection and representivity. Field practice, data acquisition and processing. Safety aspects.

The best single reference for both the theory and practice of soil physical measurements, Methods, Part 4 adopts a more hierarchical approach to allow readers to easily find their specific topic or measurement of interest. As such it is divided into eight main chapters on soil sampling and statistics, the solid, solution, and gas phases, soil heat, solute transport, multi-fluid flow, and erosion. More than 100 world experts contribute detailed sections.

This book is written for all those involved in measurement of soil water phenomena, whether they be environmental scientists, field technicians, agronomists, meteorologists, hydrogeologists, foresters, physical geographers, civil or water engineers or students in these subjects. It contains a comprehensive description of all the major methods used for measurement of soil water content and potential, solute concentration, transport and balance of water and solutes, including recharge to groundwater aquifers. The emphasis is firmly on techniques which can be applied in the field or on samples obtained from the field. The theory and practice of the workings of the main instruments and methods available is described, along with practical tips on surmounting some of the main difficulties and explanations of many commonly encountered jargon words.

Reviews a wide range of methods for soil physical analysis. Considers applications, accuracy, measurement time, and cost of equipment. Provides examples of applications.

"Reviews a wide range of methods for soil physical analysis. Considers applications, accuracy, measurement time, and cost of equipment. Provides examples of applications."

This textbook presents the concepts and processes involved in the soil-plant-atmosphere system as well as its applications in the water cycle in agriculture. Although reaching the frontier of our knowledge in several subjects, each chapter starts at the graduation level and proceeds to the post-doctoral level. Its more complicated subjects, as math and physics, are well explained, even to readers not well acquainted with these tools. Therefore, it helps students read, understand, and developing their thoughts on these subjects. Instructors also find it an easy book with the needed depth to be adopted in courses related to Soil Physics, Agricultural Management, Environmental Protection, Irrigation and Agrometeorology. It serves also as “lexicon” to engineers and lawyers involved in agricultural, environmental cases.

Thoroughly updated and revised, this second edition of the bestselling Soil Sampling and Methods of Analysis presents several new chapters in the areas of biological and physical analysis and soil sampling. Reflecting the burgeoning interest in soil ecology, new contributions describe the growing number and assortment of new microbiological

capable of providing at least a relative measure of stomatal aperture were first used shortly thereafter (Darwin and Pertz, 1911). The Carnegie Institution of Washington's Desert Research Laboratory in Tucson from 1905 to 1927 was the first effort by plant physiologists and ecologists to conduct team research on the water relations of desert plants. Measurements by Stocker in the North African deserts and Indonesia (Stocker, 1928, 1935) and by Lundegardh (1922) in forest understories were pioneering attempts to understand the environmental controls on photosynthesis in the field. While these early physiological ecologists were keen observers and often posed hypotheses still relevant today they were strongly limited by the methods and technologies available to them. Their measurements provided only rough approximations of the actual plant responses. The available laboratory equip ment was either unsuited or much more difficult to operate under field than laboratory conditions. Laboratory physiologists distrusted the results and ecologists were largely not persuaded of its relevance. Consequently, it was not until the 1950s and 1960s that physiological ecology began its current resurgence. While the reasons for this are complicated, the development and application of more sophisticated instruments such as the infrared gas analyzer played a major role. In addition, the development of micrometeorology led to new methods of characterizing the plant environments.