Footprint characteristics revised for field-scale soil moisture monitoring with cosmic-ray neutrons
Heidelberg University · Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research · +1 more institution
Abstract
Cosmic-ray neutron probes are widely used to monitor environmental water content near the surface. The method averages over tens of hectares and is unrivaled in serving representative data for agriculture and hydrological models at the hectometer scale. Recent experiments, however, indicate that the sensor response to environmental heterogeneity is not fully understood. Knowledge of the support volume is a prerequisite for the proper interpretation and validation of hydrogeophysical data. In a previous study, several physical simplifications have been introduced into a neutron transport model in order to derive the characteristics of the cosmic-ray probe's footprint. We utilize a refined source and energy…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 13.69
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 72
Authors
6Topics & keywords
- Environmental science
- Neutron probe
- Terrain
- Footprint
- Water content
- Soil science
- Neutron
- Cosmic ray