soil moisture scaling

I'm trying to understand the total soil moisture change in the first meter of soil. VC gives soil moisture at different depths (let's say in mm), over the depth ranges 0 - 0.1m, 0.1 - 0.4 m, and 0.4 - 1 m. Are the reported mm of soil moisture per meter or per the given depth range?

In other words, if I wanted to know the soil moisture from 0 - 1m, would that be?:

soilmoisture01 + soilmoisture04 + soilmoisture10 =

soilmoisture01*(0.1) + soilmoisture04*(0.3) + soilmoisture10*(0.6) =

Thanks!

info August 06, 2025 03:45 Official comment

Hi Tristan,

It depends on which soilmoisture element you choose. If you are working with standard soilmoisture elements rather than the 'volumetric' variety, it is a simple sum. Your first example of: soilmoisture01 + soilmoisture04 + soilmoisture10 = total moisture in 1m.

To further clarify: 1mm of soil moisture means that if the water currently present in the soil were to form a uniform layer on the surface, it would be 1mm deep.

Regards,

VC Technical Support

soil moisture scaling

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