Paper Title
Advances in the Development of ad HOC Instrumentation towards Improving Irrigation Practices in Michoacán, México: Validation of Electrical Impedance Measurements

Abstract
One of the key factors that influence adequate water management in irrigation districts is accurate knowledge of soil hydraulic conductivity properties. Although there are many commercial devices available for measurement of soil water content, it is common to find in developing countries that irrigation practices lack technification and planning based of specific soil data.The authors present advances of an international initiative to develop ad hoc, versatile soil moisture instrumentation directed towards optimizing water resources. The initiative identifies electrical impedance measurements as a suitable candidate for implementing soil moisture sensing instrumentation that can also be used for modelling soil hydraulic conductivity properties for optimizing water resources.This paper focuses onthe results of comparing the electrical impedance data with gravimetric and time domain reflectometry (TDR) data on a laboratory setup. The quantitative results indicate that using electrical impedance measurements can be used to infer soil water content, in agreement with TDR measurements. Index Terms - Irrigation efficiency, soil moisture, instrumentation, water resources management.