Development of method to measure degree of saturation of various sandy model grounds by image analysis

摘要

The degree of saturation of ground is conventionally measured at discrete points using trans-ducers, soil moisture sensors, etc. In this paper, we developed a novel method which can directly measure the degree of saturation in a continuous region of a model ground by capturing the variation in color of the ground as the amount of moisture in the soil changes. From photo images taken at various soil moisture contents, the colors of the images were converted into numerical values which were then related to the degrees of saturation. Good results were obtained for three soil samples with different colors, grain size distributions and water color condition. The applicability of method was validated through vertical seepage tests which showed good agree-ment between the matric potential measured by tensiometers and the degree of saturation estimated by image processing.