### Soil and Plant Moisture Monitoring
**Moisture mapping** involves studying the spatial and temporal variations in soil moisture to get insights into water movement and storage in the soil. It helps in understanding the plant-water relationship and managing irrigation systems.
### How do you monitor moisture in soil?
There are a wide array of methods used to monitor soil moisture:
– **Tensiometers:** Measure soil water potential, which is a measure of how tightly water is bound to the soil particles.
– **Soil moisture sensors:** Measure the volumetric water content of the soil, typically using capacitance, resistance, or time-domain reflectometry (TDR).
– **Neutron probes:** Measure the water content by emitting neutrons and detecting the number that are reflected back by hydrogen atoms in the soil.
– **Lysimeters:** Collect and measure the amount of water that drains from the soil, providing an indirect measure of soil moisture.
– **Remote sensing:** Uses satellites or aircraft to measure soil moisture indirectly by capturing changes in vegetation cover, surface temperature, and other parameters.