IDENTIFICATION OF SOIL MOISTURE FOR DROUGHT ASSESSMENT – A CASE STUDY IN CHENGALPATTU DISTRICT, TAMILNADU, INDIA

Abstract

Soil moisture is one of the key variables in the climate system. Information about soil moisture is important for the assessment of various climatological and hydrological factors. The study deals with different aspects of identifying soil moisture. At first, the field spectro radiometer measurement was made to study the reflectance pattern of soil, secondly, a soil moisture sensor was used which consists of conducting probes along with the Arduino setup interfaced with the software. This software determines the output both analytically and digitally. Spatial and Non-spatial data were collected and studied to aid in the soil moisture determination.  At last, samples were collected from the study area and tested for gravimetric analysis to find out the moisture content present in the soil samples. The study was aimed at the comparison of the above-mentioned methods to assess the precision of soil moisture which in turn helps in analyzing the prevailing drought conditions in the selected study region.