Water content

In soil mechanics and petroleum engineering, the term

Va water saturation or degree of saturation, Sw is used,
Vv dened as
Vw Mw
Vt
Mt Vw Vw
Sw = = =
Vs Ms Vv VT

where = Vv /VT is the porosity and Vv is the volume of

void or pore space. Values of Sw can range from 0 (dry)
to 1 (saturated). In reality, Sw never reaches 0 or 1 - these
Soil composition by Volume and Mass, by phase: air, water, void are idealizations for engineering use.
(pores lled with water or air), soil, and total.
The normalized water content, , (also called eective
saturation or Se ) is a dimensionless value dened by van
Water content or moisture content is the quantity of
Genuchten[2] as:
water contained in a material, such as soil (called soil
moisture), rock, ceramics, fruit, or wood. Water con-
tent is used in a wide range of scientic and technical r
areas, and is expressed as a ratio, which can range from =
s r
0 (completely dry) to the value of the materials porosity
at saturation. It can be given on a volumetric or mass where is the volumetric water content; r is the residual
(gravimetric) basis. water content, dened as the water content for which the
gradient d/dh becomes zero; and, s is the saturated
water content, which is equivalent to porosity, .
1 Denitions
Volumetric water content, , is dened mathematically 2 Measurement
as:
2.1 Direct methods
Vw
= Water content can be directly measured using a known
VT
volume of the material, and a drying oven. Volumetric
where Vw is the volume of water and VT = Vs + Vv = water content, , is calculated[3] using:
Vs + Vw + Va is the total volume (that is soil volume +
water volume + air space).
mwet mdry
Gravimetric water content[1] is expressed by mass =
(weight) as follows: w Vb

where
mw
u=
mt mwet and mdry are the masses of the sample
before and after drying in the oven;
where mw is the mass of water and mt is the bulk mass.
The bulk mass is taken as the total mass, except for w is the density of water; and
woodworking, geotechnical and soil science applications Vb is the volume of the sample before drying
where oven-dried soil ( ms , see the diagram) is conven- the sample.
tionally used instead of mt .
To convert gravimetric water content to volumetric wa- For materials that change in volume with water content,
ter, multiply the gravimetric water content by the bulk such as coal, the water content, u, is expressed in terms
specic gravity of the material. of the mass of water per unit mass of the moist specimen:

1
2 3 CLASSIFICATION AND USES

2.4 Satellite remote sensing method

mwet mdry
u= Satellite microwave remote sensing is used to estimate
mwet soil moisture based on the large contrast between the di-
electric properties of wet and dry soil. The microwave
However, geotechnics requires the moisture content to be
radiation is not sensitive to atmospheric variables, and
expressed as a percentage of the samples dry weight i.e.
can penetrate through clouds. Also, microwave signal
% moisture content = u100%
can penetrate, to a certain extent, the vegetation canopy
and retrieve information from ground surface . The data
Where from microwave remote sensing satellite such as: Wind-
m m Sat, AMSR-E, RADARSAT, ERS-1-2, Metop/ASCAT
u = wetmdry dry are used to estimate surface soil moisture .

For wood, the convention is to report moisture content on

oven-dry basis (i.e. generally drying sample in an oven set
at 105 deg Celsius for 24 hours). In wood drying, this is
3 Classication and uses
an important concept.
Moisture may be present as adsorbed moisture at internal
surfaces and as capillary condensed water in small pores.
At low relative humidities, moisture consists mainly of
2.2 Laboratory methods
adsorbed water. At higher relative humidities, liquid wa-
ter becomes more and more important, depending or not
Main article: Moisture analysis
depending on the pore size can also be a inuence of vol-
ume. In wood-based materials, however, almost all water
Other methods that determine water content of a sample is adsorbed at humidities below 98% RH.
include chemical titrations (for example the Karl Fischer
In biological applications there can also be a distinction
titration), determining mass loss on heating (perhaps in
between physisorbed water and free water the ph-
the presence of an inert gas), or after freeze drying. In the
ysisorbed water being that closely associated with and
food industry the Dean-Stark method is also commonly
relatively dicult to remove from a biological material.
used.
The method used to determine water content may aect
From the Annual Book of ASTM (American Society for whether water present in this form is accounted for. For
Testing and Materials) Standards, the total evaporable a better indication of free and bound water, the water
moisture content in Aggregate (C 566) can be calculated activity of a material should be considered.
with the formula:
Water molecules may also be present in materials closely
associated with individual molecules, as water of crys-
tallization, or as water molecules which are static com-
W D ponents of protein structure.
p=
D

where p is the fraction of total evaporable moisture con-

tent of sample, W is the mass of the original sample, and 3.1 Earth and agricultural sciences
D is mass of dried sample.
In soil science, hydrology and agricultural sciences, water
content has an important role for groundwater recharge,
2.3 Geophysical methods agriculture, and soil chemistry. Many recent scien-
tic research eorts have aimed toward a predictive-
See also: Soil moisture sensors understanding of water content over space and time. Ob-
servations have revealed generally that spatial variance
in water content tends to increase as overall wetness in-
There are several geophysical methods available that can creases in semiarid regions, to decrease as overall wetness
approximate in situ soil water content. These methods in- increases in humid regions, and to peak under intermedi-
clude: time-domain reectometry (TDR), neutron probe, ate wetness conditions in temperate regions .[5]
frequency domain sensor, capacitance probe, amplitude
domain reectometry, electrical resistivity tomography, There are four standard water contents that are routinely
ground penetrating radar (GPR), and others that are sen- measured and used, which are described in the following
sitive to the physical properties of water .[4] Geophysical table:
sensors are often used to monitor soil moisture continu- And lastly the available water content, , which is equiv-
ously in agricultural and scientic applications. alent to:
 3

Water activity

Water retention curve

which can range between 0.1 in gravel and 0.3 in peat.

3.1.1 Agriculture 5 References

When a soil becomes too dry, plant transpiration drops
because the water is increasingly bound to the soil par-
ticles by suction. Below the wilting point plants are no
longer able to extract water. At this point they wilt and
cease transpiring altogether. Conditions where soil is too
dry to maintain reliable plant growth is referred to as
agricultural drought, and is a particular focus of irrigation
management. Such conditions are common in arid and
semi-arid environments.
Some agriculture professionals are beginning to use envi-
ronmental measurements such as soil moisture to sched-
ule irrigation. This method is referred to as smart irriga-
tion or soil cultivation.
[1] T. William Lambe & Robert V. Whitman (1969). Chap-
ter 3: Description of an Assemblage of Particles. Soil
Mechanics (First ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 553.
ISBN 0-471-51192-7.
[2] van Genuchten, M.Th. (1980). A closed-form
equation for predicting the hydraulic conduc-
tivity of unsaturated soils (PDF). Soil Science
Society of America Journal 44 (5): 892898.
doi:10.2136/sssaj1980.03615995004400050002x.
[3] Dingman, S.L. (2002). Chapter 6, Water in soils: in-
ltration and redistribution. Physical Hydrology (Second
ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
p. 646. ISBN 0-13-099695-5.

[4] F. Ozcep, M. Asci, O. Tezel, T. Yas, N. Alpaslan, D. Gun-

3.1.2 Groundwater dogdu (2005). Relationships Between Electrical Proper-
ties (in Situ) and Water Content (in the Laboratory) of
In saturated groundwater aquifers, all available pore Some Soils in Turkey (PDF). Geophysical Research Ab-
spaces are lled with water (volumetric water content = stracts 7.
porosity). Above a capillary fringe, pore spaces have air [5] Lawrence, J. E., and G. M. Hornberger
in them too. (2007). Soil moisture variability across cli-
Most soils have a water content less than porosity, which mate zones. Geophys. Res. Lett. 34 (L20402):
is the denition of unsaturated conditions, and they L20402. Bibcode:2007GeoRL..3420402L.
doi:10.1029/2007GL031382.
make up the subject of vadose zone hydrogeology. The
capillary fringe of the water table is the dividing line be-
tween saturated and unsaturated conditions. Water con-
tent in the capillary fringe decreases with increasing dis- 6 Further reading
tance above the phreatic surface.
Field Estimation of Soil Water Content: A Practi-
One of the main complications which arises in studying
cal Guide to Methods, Instrumentation and Sensor
the vadose zone, is the fact that the unsaturated hydraulic
Technology (PDF), Vienna, Austria: International
conductivity is a function of the water content of the ma-
Atomic Energy Agency, 2008, p. 131, ISSN 1018-
terial. As a material dries out, the connected wet path-
5518, IAEA-TCS-30
ways through the media become smaller, the hydraulic
conductivity decreasing with lower water content in a very
non-linear fashion.
A water retention curve is the relationship between volu-
metric water content and the water potential of the porous
medium. It is characteristic for dierent types of porous
medium. Due to hysteresis, dierent wetting and drying
curves may be distinguished.

4 See also
Humidity, water content in air
Moisture
Moisture analysis
Soil moisture sensors
4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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