Delineation of Agricultural Drainage Pipe Patterns Using Ground Penetrating Radar Integrated with a Real-Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite System

Barry Allred, DeBonne Wishart, Luis Martinez, Harry Schomberg, Steven Mirsky, George Meyers, John Elliott and Christine Charyton
Additional contact information
Barry Allred: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Res. Serv., Soil Drainage Res. Unit, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
DeBonne Wishart: C.J. International Center for Water Resources Management, Central State University, Wilberforce, OH 45384, USA
Luis Martinez: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Res. Serv., Soil Drainage Res. Unit, Columbus, OH 43210, USA
Harry Schomberg: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Res. Serv., Beltsville Agric. Res. Cntr., Beltsville, MD 20705, USA
Steven Mirsky: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Res. Serv., Beltsville Agric. Res. Cntr., Beltsville, MD 20705, USA
George Meyers: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Res. Serv., Beltsville Agric. Res. Cntr., Beltsville, MD 20705, USA
John Elliott: Veselka Farms, Pataskala, OH 43062, USA
Christine Charyton: Veselka Farms, Pataskala, OH 43062, USA

Agriculture, 2018, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: Better methods are needed for mapping agricultural drainage pipe systems. Prior research on small test plots indicates that ground penetrating radar (GPR) is oftentimes capable of detecting buried drainage pipes; however, the feasibility of employing this geophysical technique in larger field areas has not been adequately evaluated. Ground penetrating radar integrated with a Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) may be an effective and efficient means of mapping drain lines within agricultural fields. Therefore, GPR-RTK/GNSS was tested in three agricultural settings; with Site 1 and Site 2 located in Beltsville, MD, USA and Site 3 near Columbus, OH, USA. Soils at the three sites ranged from silty clay loam to loamy sand. A GPR unit with 250 MHz antennas was used to detect drainage pipes, and at Sites 1 and 2, a physical GNSS base station was utilized, while a virtual base station was employed at Site 3. The GPR-RTK/GNSS configurations used in this study delineated a complex rectangular drainage pipe system at Site 1, with one set of drainage pipes oriented southwest-northeast and a second oriented southeast-northwest. At Site 2, a herringbone drain line pattern was outlined, and at Site 3, random drain lines were found. When integrated with RTK/GNSS, spiral or serpentine GPR transects (or spiral/serpentine segments of a GPR transects) were utilized to provide insight on drain line directional trends. Consequently, given suitable field conditions, GPR integrated with RTK/GNSS can be a valuable tool for farmers and drainage contractors needing to map subsurface drainage systems.

Keywords: Drainage Pipe Mapping; Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR); Real-Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite System (RTK/GNSS) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/11/167/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/11/167/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:11:p:167-:d:177830

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().