Reply to Comments: A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils, Sensors, 15, 25546–25563

Abstract

In this article we respond to the comments made by Chavanne et al., who have questioned: (i) the name of the technique used; (ii) the ability of the system to determine both soil water content and salinity due to potential instrument biases and choice of sensor frequencies; and (iii) the procedure used to determine temperature effect on readings presented in the article “A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils” (Sensors 2015, 15, 25546–25563). We have carefully analyzed the arguments in the comment, and have concluded that they only partially affect the previous conclusions, as will be discussed in this reply. We show here that the findings and conclusions previously drawn are valid and supported by the many experiments previously conducted.

Keywords

• dielectric constant
• electrical conductivity
• auto-balancing bridge
• microcontroller
• embedded system