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Accounting for biomass water equivalent variations in soil moisture retrievals from cosmic ray neutron sensor

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  • Al-Mashharawi, Samer K.
  • Steele-Dunne, Susan C.
  • El Hajj, Marcel M.
  • Schrön, Martin
  • Doussan, Claude
  • Courault, Dominique
  • Franz, Trenton E.
  • McCabe, Matthew F.

Abstract

Cosmic ray neutron sensor (CRNS) has gained popularity in the last decade for its suitability in estimating area-averaged soil moisture (SM). The presence of fresh biomass influences the CRNS signal due to its water content, introducing bias to soil moisture estimation. Calibration and correction methods have been developed to account for this bias, but they usually require laborious sampling. Here, a novel approach is tested to assess the impact of biomass water equivalent (BWE) on CRNS soil moisture estimation. It was conducted in two contrasting environments from 15/11/21–1/02/23 for an olive orchard in Saudi Arabia, and from 15/02/22–30/03/23 for a cherry orchard in France. Water-uptake rates were monitored using sap flow sensors, as well as actual evapotranspiration (AET) and in-situ SM within the CRNS footprint. Concurrent environmental variables were also measured with a research-grade weather stations. It was found that when vapor pressure deficit (VPD) > 1.8kPa, CRNS-derived SM (CRNS-SM) closely matched in-situ SM measurements, which indicates minimal influence from BWE. Conversely, when VPD is lower than 1.8kPa, CRNS-SM overestimates the in-situ moisture. An optimization approach was used to find a temporally-varying value of N0 parameter that minimizes the difference between soil moisture estimated with CRNS and in-situ sensors. Furthermore, the results showed that the relative change in the optimized value of N0 (N0,opt) was well correlated with VPD in both orchards (R2 = 0.66 for olive and R2 = 0.74 for cherry orchards), indicating a strong correlation between these variables. These findings suggest that integrating VPD and CRNS observations, and using the VPD-N0,opt correlation approach could be a promising way to account for the bias due to biomass dynamics on the estimation of area-averaged SM.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Mashharawi, Samer K. & Steele-Dunne, Susan C. & El Hajj, Marcel M. & Schrön, Martin & Doussan, Claude & Courault, Dominique & Franz, Trenton E. & McCabe, Matthew F., 2025. "Accounting for biomass water equivalent variations in soil moisture retrievals from cosmic ray neutron sensor," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:313:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425002070
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109493
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. El Hajj, Marcel M. & Johansen, Kasper & Almashharawi, Samer K. & McCabe, Matthew F., 2023. "Water uptake rates over olive orchards using Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar data," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    2. Luca Stevanato & Gabriele Baroni & Yafit Cohen & Cristiano Lino Fontana & Simone Gatto & Marcello Lunardon & Francesco Marinello & Sandra Moretto & Luca Morselli, 2019. "A Novel Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensor for Soil Moisture Estimation over Large Areas," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-14, September.
    3. Sellami, Mohamed Habib & Sifaoui, Mohamed Salah, 2003. "Estimating transpiration in an intercropping system: measuring sap flow inside the oasis," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 191-204, April.
    4. Elfarkh, Jamal & Johansen, Kasper & El Hajj, Marcel M. & Almashharawi, Samir K. & McCabe, Matthew F., 2023. "Evapotranspiration, gross primary productivity and water use efficiency over a high-density olive orchard using ground and satellite based data," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    5. Muhammad Al-Rashed & Mohsen Sherif, 2000. "Water Resources in the GCC Countries: An Overview," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 14(1), pages 59-75, February.
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