2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

3-dimensional tomography of unsaturated hydraulic properties

Research Project

Project/Area Number	22780218
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Irrigation, drainage and rural engineering/Rural planning
Research Institution	Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
Principal Investigator	SAITO Hirotaka 東京農工大学, 大学院・農学研究院, 准教授 (70447514)
Project Period (FY)	2010 – 2011
Keywords	土壌物理
Research Abstract	The main objective of this study was to estimate the spatial distribution of soil hydraulic parameters from changes in soil moisture content collected from a non-destructive method. In this study, surface ground penetrating radar(GPR), a non-destructive geophysical method often used in natural resource exploration, was used 1) for visualizing unsaturated water flow, and 2) for estimating the spatial distribution of soil hydraulic properties that reproduce measured moisture content dynamics well. In this study, a lab experiment was conducted using a large lysimeter and a field study was conducted at Sakae-cho experimental field in Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology to obtain the spatial distribution of hydraulic conductivity for the surface soil from observed moisture content data.