Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258

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Technical note

Application of TDR to water level measurement

A. Thomsen*, B. Hansen, K. Schelde
Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Crop Physiology and Soil Science, PO Box 50, DK-8830 Tjele, Denmark
Received 2 March 2000; accepted 14 July 2000

Abstract
A specialised time domain reflectometry (TDR) probe for measuring water level in tanks collecting surface runoff was
developed, calibrated and field-tested. The water level probe in the form of a slightly modified soil moisture probe was
developed as part of a TDR measuring system designed for continuous monitoring of soil water content and surface runoff in
plot studies of water erosion and sediment transport. A computer algorithm for the analysis of TDR traces from the new probe
was developed and incorporated into existing software for automated acquisition and analysis of TDR data. Laboratory
calibration showed that water level could be measured with sufficient accuracy (standard deviation 2 mm) for a range of
applications in hydrology. Soil erosion is typically a short duration process closely linked to soil moisture content and rainfall
intensity. A major benefit of integrating time critical measurements of surface runoff and soil moisture into a single system is
the synchronisation of measurements. Measurements were made on a regular schedule except during rainfall events when the
measuring rate depended on rainfall intensity.
In a parallel calibration study it was shown that the performance of the TDR probe was comparable to a commercial
ultrasonic liquid level sensor used for measuring runoff at an erosion site not instrumented for automated TDR measurements.
2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Time domain reflectometry; Water depth; Water level; Water erosion; Probe design

1. Introduction software (Baker and Allmaras, 1990; Heimovaara

Time domain reflectometry (TDR) instrumentation
is widely used in hydrology and soil science for
accurate and flexible measurement of soil water
content. Water content is measured using suitable
measuring probes of varying design (Topp et al.,
1984; Zegelin et al., 1989), with the global Topp
(Topp et al., 1980) or a locally derived calibration
function (Roth et al., 1992; Jacobsen and Schjnning,
1993) relating TDR measured soil dielectric constant
to volumetric water content. TDR measurements can
be made manually or automatically using computer
* Corresponding author. Fax: 45-89-991-619.
E-mail address: anton.thomsen@agrsci.dk (A. Thomsen).
0022-1694/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S0022-169 4(00)00305-X
and Bouten, 1990; Thomsen, 1994). Only automated
TDR systems are practical for projects where short
duration processes such as surface runoff and water
erosion are investigated. The development of a new
type of TDR probe for measuring water level was
initiated in order to integrate time critical measure-
ments of near surface water content and volume of
surface runoff into a single automated system. The
water level probe in the form of a slightly modified
two-wire soil moisture probe was designed for
measuring water level in square tanks placed below
ground level at the downslope end of field plots. Plot
layout, soil tillage, crops and selected results of the
field erosion studies are discussed by Hansen et al.
(1996).
 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258
Water level was determined by measuring the
distance between the probe head placed at a known
distance above the bottom level and the water level in
the tank. Because of impedance changes at the
beginning of the probe and at the airwater interface,
the length of probe above water level could be esti-
mated from the recorded TDR trace using suitable
software.
Employing much longer transmission lines in the
form of insulated cables or wires, Dowding and
Huang (1994) were able to measure ground water
pressure in piezometric tubes up to 15 m deep, using
a similar approach to locate both the airwater
interface and the end of the transmission line.
An alternative approach would have been to design
a probe for measuring water depth directly with refer-
ence level below the water surface. This approach
would have been preferable because of the much
lower propagation velocity of the TDR pulse
in water than in air (1:9) and the limited time
resolution of the Tektronix 1502 cable tester
(Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, OR, USA) used as TDR
instrument. Direct measurement of water depth is
however not feasible when the medium is a
mixture of water and sediments with unknown pulse
propagation velocity instead of sediment-free water
with known dielectric properties. Further, the pulse
propagation velocity in water is temperature depen-
dent requiring the temperature to be monitored and
corrected for in the analysis. The accumulation of
silt on the bottom of the tanks also complicated the
use of other submerged sensors such as pressure
transducers that were considered because of their
simplicity and moderate costs.
2. Probe design and trace analysis
The water level probe shown in Fig. 1a was
designed much like a two-wire balanced soil
moisture probe (Topp et al., 1984), the only differ-
ence being the probe rods forming a closed loop
instead of an open fork that allows insertion into
the soil. The closed loop probe was chosen
because of mechanical stability (no spacers neces-
sary for lengths up to 1.2 m) and the similarity of
signals from the shorted end of the probe and an
airwater interface. The end reflection has a
253
significant negative slope whether water is present
or not simplifying software development.
The probe is connected to the cable tester or the
multiplexer of a multiprobe system using 50 V
coaxial cable (Belden no. 9907, Belden, Rich-
mond, IN, USA). The coaxial cable and probe
rods made from 3 mm stainless steel wire are
connected using a 50/200 V (1:4) balun transfor-
mer made as described by Spaans and Baker
(1993). The balun transformer is included in
order to match the impedances of the coaxial
cable and the probe and convert from unbalanced
to balanced transmission lines. An approximate
matching of the impedances is important for redu-
cing signal losses. Spaans and Baker (1993)
provide a detailed discussion of baluns in TDR
probes. Probes of lengths up to 1.2 m have been
tested, but longer probes are possible because of
the small transmission losses in air. The probe
head is made from polyoxymethylene (POM;
generally available as Delrin), machined to hold
the probe components in place during assembly.
After soldering, the cavity is filled with a two-
component adhesive to bond the probe together
and waterproof it. In Fig. 2a the trace produced
by the probe is shown together with the other
graphical output produced by the acquisition and
Fig. 1. (a) Isometric drawing of water level probe. Materials are
Delrin plastic and 3 mm stainless steel wire. An impedance match-
ing (50/200 V) pulse transformer is placed between the coaxial
cable and probe wires in a cavity machined in the Delrin block.
The cavity is filled with a two-component adhesive after parts have
been soldered together. The placement of the probe in the collection
tank and an idealised trace are shown in (b) and (c), respectively.
254 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258

analysis software used with the water level probe,
as well as with soil moisture probes of several
designs (Thomsen, 1994). The end of the probe
section measuring in air is located at the
intersection of two short regression lines fitted to
trace segments bordering the signal from the air
water interface as discussed by Heimovaara and
Bouten (1990). If the tank is empty, the end reflec-
tion is similar and the same procedure can be
applied. The beginning of the probe is located at
the intersection of a regression line and a horizontal
line through the local trace maximum (not shown in
Fig. 2a). The beginning of the probe is located at the
impedance discontinuity where cable, balun trans-
former and probe rods are soldered together rather
than at the face of the Delrin block, necessitating
probe calibration. Maximum and minimum points
on the first derivative trace are used for locating
the trace segments used for fitting the regression
lines.
After the beginning of probe and the airwater
interface have been located, the length of probe
above the water surface is calculated assuming a
relative pulse velocity of 1 as for vacuum.

Fig. 2. (a) An example of a TDR trace recorded during laboratory calibration of the water level probe. The trace is shown together with other
output from the software developed for general TDR acquisition and analysis (details provided in the main text). The beginning and end of the
active trace are shown using vertical lines. The probe was attached to the cable tester using a short (1 m) coaxial cable. (b) The same data as
shown in (a); the only difference is 15 m of coaxial extension cable added to the 1 m probe cable used in (a). The trace has been analysed using
the same software parameters as used in (a). The heavily filtered look of the recorded trace is due to dispersion in the long cable of the step pulse
generated by the TDR instrument.
 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258
3. Calibration of TDR probe and acoustic water
level probe
Erosion plots were located at two sites with
contrasting soil types (Hansen et al., 1996). Only
one of the sites could be instrumented with an auto-
mated TDR station due to the relatively high costs of
TDR equipment. The other site was instrumented with
ultrasonic liquid level probes connected to a conven-
tional data logger for continuous recording of water
levels. Soil water content was monitored periodically
using manual TDR measurements (Thomsen, 1994).
A calibration study was planned in order to calibrate
and evaluate the two approaches to water level
measurements.
A prototype 1 m long TDR water level probe
was placed in a 1.3 m tall, clear Plexiglas cylinder
with an inside diameter of 25 cm. A steel measur-
ing tape was placed inside the cylinder with the
scale clearly readable through the Plexiglas wall.
An ultrasonic liquid level probe, PL-396
(Milltronics, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada) was
placed at the centre of the top of the same cylin-
der for calibration and comparison with TDR. The
acoustic instrument outputs a 420 mA current
proportional to measuring distance. No calibration
function was available for the instrument.
Transducer output was recorded as a voltage
difference across a 100 V shunt resistor using a
quality multimeter as readout instrument.
Water was gradually added to the cylinder and
water depth visually read to the nearest millimetre
using the measuring tape and recorded together
with the voltage output from the acoustic sensor
and TDR measurements made with five replica-
tions. In Fig. 3a mean TDR measured water
depth is shown together with the depth visually
measured using the steel tape placed inside the
cylinder. TDR measurements were converted
from distance between probe head and water
surface to water depth directly by subtracting indi-
vidual measurements from an initial measurement
made before any water was added. As water was
added and the length of probe in air was reduced,
the cable tester settings were gradually changed so
the active trace occupied most of the screen (and the
digitised trace acquired by the PC software). In
Fig. 3a, a second-order polynomial has been least-
255
squares fitted to the data and plotted together
with the residuals. Standard error was 1.6 mm
with no apparent trend in the residuals. The fitting
of a first-order polynomial resulted in a higher
standard error (2.5 mm) and a trend in the resi-
duals. This effect is likely due to the non-systema-
tic changing of trace analysis parameters with
changing trace resolution. In a later version of
the software, an option will allow the parameters to
be automatically scaled according to the settings of
the cable tester.
In Fig. 3b measurements made using the acoustic
sensor have been analysed analogous to the TDR
measurements. Standard error was 1.4 mm for a
second-order polynomial comparable to TDR
measurements. No systematic trend in the residuals
was evident.
4. Effects of long sensor cables
From experimentation with TDR probes for
measuring soil water content, it was known that
cable length strongly affects the waveform of a
given probe due to degraded rise time of the reflected
pulse from long cables (Tektronix, 1987). In Fig. 2a
and b the waveforms of the TDR depth probe with 1 m
of coaxial cable and 15 m of additional cable are
shown together. It is seen how the longer rise time
due to the longer cable resulted in traces with a
smoothed appearance. Both traces shown in Fig. 2
were analysed using the computer algorithm
previously discussed and identical parameters. From
a limited experiment, it was concluded that the addi-
tional 15 m of sensor cable did not seriously degrade
measurements if the parameters of the algorithm were
optimised for the degraded trace. The length (vertical
projection) of the regression lines shown in Fig. 2 was
found to be especially critical and should be increased
to compensate for the lower slope of degraded traces.
For applications where cables longer than the 15 m
used in this study are required, standard RG 58 coaxial
cable should be replaced by more expensive low loss
cable. Tests have shown that traces from a relatively
short soil moisture probe connected to the TDR instru-
ment using 50 m of RG 214 coaxial cable were well
defined and could readily be analysed.
The tanks to be monitored in the field erosion
256 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258

Fig. 3. (a) Depth measurements (closed symbols) made under laboratory conditions. TDR measurements are shown together with manual
measurements of water depth made in a clear Plexiglas cylinder. A second-order polynomial has been least-squares fitted to the measurements.
Standard error is 1.6 mm. There is no apparent trend in the residuals (open symbols). (b) Depth measurements (voltage output) made together
with the measurements shown in (a), using a commercial ultrasonic liquid level probe (The Probe, Milltronics PL-396). Standard error using a
second-order polynomial is 1.4 mm. There is no apparent trend in the residuals (open symbols).

project had a spacing requiring up to 15 m long
cables. To simplify trace analysis, the four TDR
depth probes to be used in the experiment were all
made with 15 m long sensor cables. After workshop
assembly the four depth probes were calibrated in the
laboratory as previously discussed for the prototype
probe. Measurements were made using the multi-
plexed TDR system (Thomsen and Thomsen, 1994)
and associated control software to be installed in the
field after probe calibration. Initially the cable tester
controls were adjusted manually so that the trace from
the probes placed together in the empty calibration
cylinder extended across the entire display. During
calibration the settings were left unchanged to
resemble the field measuring situation. The major
calibration results are given in Table 1. Both first-
and second-order polynomials were fitted to the
data resulting in negligible differences in standard
deviations. No trend in the residuals was found.
This result supports the discussion of the trend in
residuals observed in the calibration of the
prototype probe.
 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258 257

Table 1 found in the initial calibration experiment because

Calibration of four identical water depth probes with 15 m of stan- the cable tester was not adjusted here for maximum
dard RG 58 coaxial sensor cables. Regression relationship: Water
depth in cm a b TDR measured distance from probe head to
trace resolution and because of the long sensor cables
water surface in cm. The b value is less than 1 for all probes. This and multiplexing used.
can partly be explained by the relative velocity of the TDR pulse in
atmospheric air being slightly less than unity as was assumed in the
calculation of TDR distance. The standard error (Std) in cm is 5. Field measurements
relatively high because of the long sensor cables

Probe no. a b Std Fig. 4 shows soil moisture and water level
measurements during three days for one of the
1 92.87 0.991 0.29 erosion field plots. The TDR system was connected
2 94.53 0.993 0.24 to a tipping bucket-type rain gauge and the
3 93.47 0.984 0.34
4 93.22 0.988 0.25
sampling interval was reduced from 2 h to 15 min
during and for some time after depending on the
intensity rainfall events. In Fig. 4 TDR and rain-
fall data are shown using a common 2 h resolution
Although the probes were carefully made to have for direct comparison.
identical dimensions, Table 1 shows that the total During periods with sub-zero temperatures and the
TDR measured length (a) of the probes differs by formation of significant ice cover in the collection
more than 1 cm. Most of this spread is due to length tanks, the measurements were seriously degraded
differences inside the probe head where the cable, the because of the much lower contrast in dielectric
unwieldy balun transformer and the probe rods are constant between air and ice than between air and
connected. The standard deviations are larger than free water.

Fig. 4. Three days of selected measurements made in a 66.3 m 2 erosion plot at Research Centre Foulum in 1994. Measurements of water content
for the 020 cm profile (vertical probe) and at a depth of 5 cm (horizontal probe) are shown together with water level measurements made in a
1.35 m 2 collection tank and local measurements of rainfall. Time resolution is 2 h for all measurements.
258 A. Thomsen et al. / Journal of Hydrology 236 (2000) 252258
6. Summary and conclusions
Initial calibration of a prototype TDR probe for
measuring water depth showed that water depth
could be measured with sufficient accuracy both
with short and long sensor cables for field applica-
tion in water erosion studies. Surface runoff and water
erosion are typically short duration processes most
readily monitored by a system integrating both
measurements of soil moisture and runoff dynamics.
The specialised TDR probe resembling a balanced
soil moisture probe can be made in a moderately
equipped workshop and has proven reliable in the
field under adverse winter conditions. Measurements
are however degraded when the water in runoff collec-
tion tanks starts to freeze because of the low dielectric
constant of ice relative to that of unfrozen water. A
quality commercial acoustic water level probe
performed equally well or slightly better
under laboratory conditions, but has shown degraded
performance in the field because of temperature sensi-
tivity although the instrument corrects for temperature
and is rated for low temperature operation.
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