1500 sets of soil moisture monitor will be deployed in China within three years

The reporter learned from the meeting of the Comprehensive Observing Division of the China Meteorological Administration in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, on the construction of the 2009 Automatic Soil Moisture Observatory, that the China Meteorological Administration plans to use 3 years to build automatic soil moisture at the existing 1500 survey sites. The observational instrument is mainly based on a portable soil moisture observation instrument, which is an automatic national soil moisture observation network to meet the needs of modern agrometeorological services and drought monitoring services. In the eyes of the old agricultural meteorological observers, traditional agricultural weather observation methods with a ruler, a rod scale, a bite, and a glancing eye will be qualitative with the use of modern observation instruments with high technological content and fully automated operation. change.

The monitoring of the soil moisture storage and the variation of soil temperature is one of the basic tasks for the monitoring of agricultural meteorology, ecological environment and hydrological environment. Grasping the laws of soil moisture changes has important implications for agricultural production, drought monitoring and forecasting, and other related ecological environmental monitoring and forecasting services and theoretical studies. Over the years, meteorological department's drought monitoring has been using manual measurements of soil drilling and drying, and the observation frequency is 3 or 6 times per month. In recent years, with the warming of the climate, the drought problem in China has become increasingly prominent. The frequency and degree of drought has increased significantly, which has seriously threatened agricultural production, hindered economic development, and had a huge impact on the ecological environment. In particular, serious droughts in Henan, Shandong and other places in the winter and the spring and in the northeastern region have made the decision-making departments and the public put forward more urgent requirements for the automation of agricultural meteorological observations.

“The construction of a nationwide soil moisture observation network that is dense and uniform and can effectively monitor the occurrence of drought and the actual soil moisture environment of crop growth will enable the real-time transmission and real-time display of soil moisture monitoring data across the country, realizing continuous soil moisture changes at a single site. Monitoring, and combining meteorological data such as cloud maps, rainfall, etc., to achieve regional drought warning and other functions.” Hu Wen, Deputy Director of the Comprehensive Observation Division of China Meteorological Administration, said, “This will achieve timely monitoring of agricultural drought, scientific irrigation and the effective use of water The purpose of resources is to greatly improve and improve the capacity of agricultural meteorological observation and agro-meteorological services, and provide strong guarantees for ecological agriculture and high-efficiency agriculture."

According to the relevant arrangements, the China Meteorological Administration will give priority to the construction of an automatic soil moisture observation station in the winter wheat (information and market) main producing areas in North China and Huanghuai areas and drought-prone areas in southwest China. At the same time, three sets of portable soil moisture observers were deployed in each of 31 provinces (cities, districts) to carry out demonstration experiments on mobile soil moisture observations.