Abstract
The Loess Plateau in northwestern China is one of the most seriously affected regions by soil ero-sion in the world. For afforestation on steep slopes in the Loess Plateau, a small scale water harvesting system, called“fish-scale-pit”, is commonly used to reduce erosion and increase soil water storage. To evaluate the effective-ness of this system, soil water and heat movements have been monitored in an experimental site using various mon-itoring devices in the north of Loess Plateau. In this pa-per, I focused on the soil water monitoring using dielectric probes in this site. ECH2O probes, models EC-5 and EC-20 (Decagon Devices), have been set at various depths in the site. Three main problems on the soil water monitoring caused by use of the probes were discussed: (i) tempera-ture dependence of the probe outputs, (ii) data loss due to breakdowns of the probes and (iii) individual variability of the probes. It is difficult for users to solve the problems (ii) and (iii); further efforts by manufactures to provide ir-refrangible and precise probes are anticipated.
