Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 10:01:11 GMT
Subject: Important Publication: Soil Moisture Monitoring Package
Sender: owner-sowacs@aqua.ccwr.ac.za

Dear Bruce,
  
Almost a year ago I completed a contract with an Aus R&D funder to produce
a Soil Moisture Monitoring package. The package reviews about 25 products
presenting pros and cons (as far as the manufacturers would go).
  
It has just been uploaded to a website
http://www.npird.gov.au/projects/finalrep_pdf/index.html
and I thought it would make a good addition to the SOWACS links. [It has
been added at the top:) Ed.]

Details are also given on how to obtain hard copies of the publication.  
Regards  
Philip Charlesworth
CSIRO Land and Water
Townsville Australia

[Bruce comments:
Every now and then a very important publication comes along, and this is
one of them.. 
Thanks Philip, for making me aware of this excellent contribution, this is
the life-blood of sowacs.

A link to it has already been added to the "comaprisons" section of sowacs
(for those who want to be able to get to this at a later date).

I had a brief look, and am sure you will not mind a few short extractions
to be repeated here?!
The title of the work is
Irrigation Insights No. 1 Soil Water Monitoring
ISSN 1443-0320
ISBN 0 642 76055 1

The table of contents promises a wide ranging introduction to SMS:
An introduction is followed by an explanation of what is being measured.
Then the various types of sensor are intorduced by category followed by
"Selecting a product".
A 9 page summary of product feature will no doubt be of great use to those
choosing a sensor.
The individual models are then covered by sections, notibly heat
dissipation, TDR, capacitance, neutron probe. Wetting front detection is
also covered.
Case studies prove usful reading for real-life applications of "how do I"
and "what should I" questions.
A contacts list and web resources section is folllowed by appendices which
are made up of papers detailing some of the theory behind many of the
techniques.]