Dielectric Model for Thawed Mineral Soils at a Frequency of 435 MHz

A single-frequency dielectric model at 435 MHz for mineral soils is proposed. The dielectric model was created on the basis of the laboratory dielectric measurements of three soil samples with clay content in the range of 9.1%-41.3%. The input parameters of the dielectric model are volumetric soil moisture and clay content. The output parameter of the dielectric model is complex permittivity (CP). The model prediction errors are comparable with the errors of instrumental measurements of the CP for refractive index and normalized attenuation 0.1-0.3 and 0.06-0.12, respectively, in terms of root-mean-square error (RMSE). The comparative analysis of dielectric predictions in the case of the developed model proved to obtain a better accuracy than the existing dielectric models. The created model may be recommended for practical use in the algorithms of soil-moisture retrieval in the P-band.