Measuring soil frost depth in forest ecosystems with ground penetrating radar

Butnor, John R.; Campbell, John L.; Shanley, James B.; Zarnoch, Stanley J.

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2014.03.005

Cited by 9 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Some rock fragments, as identified by hyperbolic patterns of the radar signals, were evident in these parts of this pedon. For 3D visualisation of spatial variability of the intensity of the reflected energy for the antenna, block kriging of GPR was performed using the Excavated Box option in ISATIS software (Géovariances ) (Figure ). The 3D soil model of GPR amplitudes’ signal reproduces the quite variable depth of the cemented horizon and the extent of its lateral and vertical variations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using ground‐penetrating radar to explore the cemented soil horizon in an arid region in Iran

Afshar

Ayoubi

Castrignanò³

et al. 2016

Near Surface Geophysics

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Petrosalic horizon (cemented by soluble salts) is identified as a root‐restricting layer in the arid and semi‐arid regions. The knowledge of the variability of cemented layers within the soil profiles provides valuable information to decision‐makers for agricultural and/or engineering activities. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of ground‐penetrating radar in detecting petrosalic horizon within the soil pedon in an arid area (Kerman Province, southeastern Iran). The measurements were performed using an impulse ground‐penetrating radar system with a centre frequency of 250 MHz along ten parallel transects of 100‐m length and 10‐m distance between two consecutive transects at two sites. The results of the soil stratigraphy indicated the presence of petrosalic horizons at 12‐ to 36‐cm depth. The ground‐penetrating radar images showed patterns corresponding to these soil horizons. The interpreted radargrams were quite consistent with the findings of the soil pedons. It is, therefore, suggested that ground‐penetrating radar could be employed to detect the boundaries between different soil horizons in the arid areas with various degrees of conductivity. This, in turn, helps differentiate soil‐mapping units and improve the reliability and accuracy of digital soil maps. The results confirmed that ground‐penetrating radar could be used as a rapid, efficient and non‐destructive tool providing highresolution and continuous visualisation of the soil horizons to detect the presence and depth of petro‐salic horizons. Such information could be crucial in making decisions in agricultural practices (e.g., creating gardens) and engineering activities (e.g., constructing roads and buildings).

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using ground‐penetrating radar to explore the cemented soil horizon in an arid region in Iran

Afshar

Ayoubi

Castrignanò³

et al. 2016

Near Surface Geophysics

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“…The radar can be operated from vehicles, such as helicopters, airplanes or snow mobiles and can thus cover large lateral distances in short times, or it can be mounted stationary and monitor temporal changes [61]. GPR-techniques have been applied to determine the spatial distribution of snow depths [74][75][76][77][78], snow density [77,79], SWE [80], snow layering and stratigraphy [78,81,82], wet snow properties [83], soil frost depth [84][85][86][87], depths to thawing front and shallow freeze and thaw processes [85,86,[88][89][90][91][92], soil water content [93,94] and depths to the water table [95,96].…”

Section: Radar Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several of the radar techniques are well suited to record spatial variations in frost depths, and depths to the thawing front, and a surface to surface application have also been used to map temporal variations in soil moisture [249]. The temperature techniques discussed above can also be used to assess frost depths [87]. Frost depth is important for the infiltration but even more crucial is the ice content of the frost (in reality it is the open pore space that matters).…”

Section: Techniques Focusing On Soil and Groundwater Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example TDR-techniques, which can give unfrozen water content, and gamma or neutron scattering techniques, which gives total water content (liquid and frozen). Frost depth tubes filled with methylene blue solution [87], which changes color when frozen, are often used to monitor frost temporal development and their precision was, according to Iwata et al [60] around˘3.5 cm, and thaw depths were overestimated by the tubes but could be calibrated using a linear equation.…”

Section: Techniques Focusing On Soil and Groundwater Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatiotemporal Variations in Snow and Soil Frost—A Review of Measurement Techniques

et al. 2016

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Large parts of the northern hemisphere are covered by snow and seasonal frost. Climate warming is affecting spatiotemporal variations of snow and frost, hence influencing snowmelt infiltration, aquifer recharge and river runoff patterns. Measurement difficulties have hampered progress in properly assessing how variations in snow and frost impact snowmelt infiltration. This has led to contradicting findings. Some studies indicate that groundwater recharge response is scale dependent. It is thus important to measure snow and soil frost properties with temporal and spatial scales appropriate to improve infiltration process knowledge. The main aim with this paper is therefore to review ground based methods to measure snow properties (depth, density, water equivalent, wetness, and layering) and soil frost properties (depth, water and ice content, permeability, and distance to groundwater) and to make recommendations for process studies aiming to improve knowledge regarding infiltration in regions with seasonal frost. Ground-based radar (GBR) comes in many different combinations and can, depending on design, be used to assess both spatial and temporal variations in snow and frost so combinations of GBR and tracer techniques can be recommended and new promising methods (auocostics and self potential) are evolving, but the study design must be adapted to the scales, the aims and the resources of the study.

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“…A high frequency GPR direct ground wave has also been tested to monitor the dynamics of the seasonal development of the thin soil frozen layer [33]. Recently, Butnor et al [34] measured soil frost depth in a forest ecosystem using GPR and reported that deep snow and shallow frost can make frost detection with GPR difficult, due to signal attenuation. Since commercially-available GPR systems are mostly ground coupled, the structure of snow cover or frozen soil can be significantly disturbed by dragging the GPR antenna over the surface.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal Monitoring of the Soil Freeze-Thaw Cycles over a Snow-Covered Surface by Using Air-Launched Ground-Penetrating Radar

Jadoon

Weihermüller²,

McCabe

et al. 2015

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:We tested an off-ground ground-penetrating radar (GPR) system at a fixed location over a bare agricultural field to monitor the soil freeze-thaw cycles over a snow-covered surface. The GPR system consisted of a monostatic horn antenna combined with a vector network analyzer, providing an ultra-wideband stepped-frequency continuous-wave radar. An antenna calibration experiment was performed to filter antenna and back scattered effects from the raw GPR data. Near the GPR setup, sensors were installed in the soil to monitor the dynamics of soil temperature and dielectric permittivity at different depths. The soil permittivity was retrieved via inversion of time domain GPR data focused on the surface reflection. Significant effects of soil dynamics were observed in the time-lapse GPR, temperature and dielectric permittivity measurements. In particular, five freeze and thaw events were clearly detectable, indicating that the GPR signals respond to the contrast between the dielectric permittivity of frozen and thawed soil. The GPR-derived permittivity was in good agreement with sensor observations. Overall, the off-ground nature of the GPR Remote Sens. 2015, 7 12042 system permits non-invasive time-lapse observation of the soil freeze-thaw dynamics without disturbing the structure of the snow cover. The proposed method shows promise for the real-time mapping and monitoring of the shallow frozen layer at the field scale.

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Measuring soil frost depth in forest ecosystems with ground penetrating radar

Cited by 9 publications

References 32 publications

Using ground‐penetrating radar to explore the cemented soil horizon in an arid region in Iran

Using ground‐penetrating radar to explore the cemented soil horizon in an arid region in Iran

Spatiotemporal Variations in Snow and Soil Frost—A Review of Measurement Techniques

Temporal Monitoring of the Soil Freeze-Thaw Cycles over a Snow-Covered Surface by Using Air-Launched Ground-Penetrating Radar

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