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.