Advanced Cosmic Ray Instrumentation for Agricultural Water Scarcity Resilience

宇宙射线是21世纪世纪的占卜棒吗？到2025年，将有18亿人生活在绝对缺水的情况下，世界三分之二的人口生活在缺水的条件下。农业用水占世界用水量的70%，因此土壤含水量的测量有可能将水用于最需要的地方，并减轻水资源短缺的影响。水对粮食生产也至关重要，到2050年，粮食需求将增长60%。宇宙射线是自然界的X射线，一种自然发生的高穿透性辐射，已经使科学家能够对金字塔内部以及火山和走私核材料的货物集装箱进行着名的成像。我们的项目探索了宇宙射线的一种新应用-测量土壤中的含水量。当宇宙射线撞击地面时，它们可以与靠近表面的材料相互作用，产生其他粒子，称为中子。碰巧产生的中子数与地下水的数量有关。因此，通过测量中子，我们可以了解地下水的含量。我们的项目旨在开发一种新型的低成本仪器，能够测量这些宇宙射线感生的中子，从而为我们提供一个21世纪的潜水杆，这将有助于全球对抗水资源短缺。

Are cosmic rays a 21st century divining rod?By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in absolute water scarcity and two-thirds of the world's population live in water-stressed conditions. Agricultural water consumption accounts for 70% of the world's water usage so measurements of soil water content have the potential to direct water usage to where its most needed and alleviate the effects of water scarcity. Water is also essential for food production with demand required to grow by 60% by 2050.Cosmic rays are nature's x-rays, a type of naturally occuring and highly penetrating radiation that is already allowing scientists to famously image the interior of pyramids as well as volcanoes and cargo containers for smuggled nuclear materials. Our project explores a novel application of cosmic rays - to measure the water content within soil.When cosmic rays strike the ground they can interact with the material close to the surface, creating other particles, called neutrons. It so happens that the number of neutrons that are produced is related to the amount of water in the ground. Therefore by measuring the neutrons we learn something about the groundwater content.Our project sets out to develop a novel type of low-cost instrumentation, capable of measuring these cosmic-ray induced neutrons, thus providing us with a 21st century diving rod that will help in the global fight against water scarcity.