Cosmic Ray Neutron Probe: Uses, Calibration and Validation in Austria

The importance of surface soil water (rooting zone) has become evident with climate change affecting rainfall patterns and crop production. The use of Cosmic Ray Neutron Probe (CRNP) for measuring surface soil water content has become increasingly popular. The advantage of CRNP is that it is a non-invasive technique for measuring soil water content at an area-wide scale (600 meter in diameter), providing an unprecedented scale of observation (Desilets and Zreda, 2013). It also, monitor soil water content integrated over the top 40 cm depending on the wetness of the soil equivalent to snow depth of about 20 cm