Description
Content: Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing has become the method of choice for measuring the soil moisture in applications like controlled irrigation, precision farming, drought forecast and flood prevention. CRNS uses neurons produced by spallation processes caused by cosmic rays in the upper atmosphere. The sensitivity of the CRNS method to soil moisture is based on the fact that the albedo of the soil for epithermal neutrons is governed by the water content of the soil. To improve on this method a closer network on stations continuously monitor the cosmic ray flux is required.
Author
Ulrich Schmidt
(Physikalisches Institut Uni Heidelberg)
Co-author
Dr
Markus Köhli
(Physikalisches Institut)