Soil moisture - resistivity relation at the plot and catchment scale.

The key role played by soil moisture in both Global Hydrological Cycle and Earth Radiation Budget has been claimed by numerous authors during past decades. The importance of this environmental variable is evident in several natural processes operating in a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. At continental and regional scales soil moisture influences the evapotranspiration process and so acts indirectly on the climate processes; at middle scale is one of the major controls of the infiltration-runoff soil response during rainfall events; at small scales the knowledge of soil moisture evolution is crucial for precision agriculture and the associated site-specific management practices.