Simultaneous determination of the dielectric relaxation behavior and soilwater characteristic curve of undisturbed soil samples

Abstract

The frequency dependence of soil electromagnetic properties contain valuable information of the porous material due to strong contributions to the dielectric relaxation behavior by interactions between aqueous pore solution and mineral phases due to interface effects. Soil hydraulic properties such as matric potential are also influenced by different surface bonding forces due to interface processes. For this reason, a new analysis methodology was developed, which allows a simultaneous determination of the soil water characteristic curve and the dielectric relaxation behavior of undisturbed soil samples. This opens the possibility to systematically analyze coupled hydraulic/dielectric soil properties for the development of pedotransfer functions to estimate physico-chemical parameters with broadband HF-EM measurement techniques.