GNGTS 2023 - Atti del 41° Convegno Nazionale

Session 3.2 - POSTER GNGTS 2023 On the use of ERT and EMI for the assessment of hydrological impacts of different agricultural practices A. Carrera 1 , M. Longo 1 , I. Piccoli 1 , B. Mary 2 , G. Cassiani 2 , F. Morari 1 1 DAFNAE Department, University of Padova, Legnaro, Italy 2 Geoscience Department, University of Padova, Padova, Italy Keywords : Agrogeophysics; ERT; EMI; proximal sensing; conservation agriculture In the era of changing climate, agriculture faces severe problems, such as water scarcity and soil erosion, striving for sustainable development. More careful management in worldwide crop production is required (Paustian et al., 2016; Vyas et al., 2022), calling for accurate monitoring of the human-soil system interaction, in order to better understand their dynamics and to model future crop yields. The way to achieve soil sustainability is the choice of farming practices, the consequences of which directly reflect on the physico-chemical properties of soils. The central role that soil structure plays for plant growth, ecological functioning, surface water and energy fluxes (Bronick and Lal, 2004; Hamza and Anderson, 2005) has therefore become increasingly important. Traditional farming approaches rely on soil preparation for seeding, including plowing and refinement operations. Heavy machineries are required, which modify and strongly disturb soil natural structure and biological activity. Conversely, conservation agriculture is a system of practices that minimizes mechanical soil disturbance, maintaining permanent soil cover (i.e. crop residues, cover crops), and prescribing crop rotation (Holland, 2004; Farooq et al., 2015). Geophysical methods are non-invasive sensing techniques used to measure the electro-mechanical properties of the investigated media and in agriculture, they are increasingly playing an important role in the characterization of soil spatial variability and hydrological processes (Garré et al., 2012, 2021; Binley et al., 2015b). Electrical and electromagnetic techniques have been widely applied in the characterization of soil properties (bulk density and clay content) as well as state variables (soil salinity, water content, and water saturation), as they are sensitive, through the effect on bulk electrical conductivity (EC), to porosity, pore water conductivity, saturation, grain mineralogy, and bulk density (Friedman, 2005; Vereecken et al., 2007; Singha et al., 2015; Binley et al., 2015a). Since traditional measurements rely on time consuming, invasive physical methods that can be only episodically performed, the biggest