APPLEx

Intensive spatial ground soil moisture sampling will focus on four 3 km × 3 km focus areas and a 1 km × 1 km focus paddock to cover the representative land cover conditions within the study area. Figure 5- gives an overview of the locations of the focus areas within the study area. Soil moisture will be monitored concurrently with each flight using the Hydraprobe Data Acquisition System (HDAS). Spatial soil moisture data will be recorded in local (UTC+10) time reference. 

Supplementary soil moisture sampling was conducted using a Scout sensor. This handheld sensor is a FieldScout TDR 100 soil moisture meter allowing the user to easily and rapidly take many measurements to a depth of 20 cm. Based on the proven time-domain measurement technology, the portable TDR 100 accurately measures soil moisture across the full range of soil moisture conditions. The sensor can be fitted with different sized pins (rods) to measure soil moisture from different depths: 3.8 cm, 7.6 cm, 12 cm and 20 cm. 

Soil moisture measurements by the Scout is compared with HDAS measurements at each point. Parts of each 3km × 3km focus area was monitored using a north-south oriented regular grid of sampling locations at 50 m spacing.