Deep Drainage
Study groundwater recharge, nutrient or contaminant leaching, and the influence of land management practices on water retention and drainage across a larger area with affordable, easy to use instruments.
Leaching and contaminant transport
Whether you're monitoring nitrate loss, validating land use models, or ensuring regulatory compliance, as a hydrologist, you know every data point must hold up to scrutiny. Every insight must lead to action. But monitoring leaching and contaminant transport is technically demanding and budget constrained. What if you could track solute movement the moment it starts leaching, and not weeks too late? You need tools that help your risk assessments become faster and more defensible, based on real-time data instead of estimates, so you can achieve earlier detection of breakthrough, better model validation, and greater confidence in every decision you present.
Complexity often means tradeoffs
The deeper in the soil you monitor, the more complex the measurement process gets. And in many research projects, that complexity leads to hard tradeoffs:
Sacrificing resolution for affordability
Risking missed transport events because your system isn’t automated or continuous
Choosing between lab precision and field practicality
Without dependable deep-profile data, you risk flawed management decisions, compromised compliance, and lost opportunities to prevent groundwater contamination before it starts.
We’ve spent decades working with research hydrologists, watershed managers, and environmental consultants to make contaminant transport monitoring simpler, more scalable, and more accurate.
Our systems combine sensors and easy-to-use software into a cloud-connected system designed for long-term deployment and decision-grade data.
We’ve eliminated barriers like complex installation, inconsistent EC data, sensor drift, and manual downloads, so you can focus on what really matters: protecting water quality. Here are some ways we do it:
Research-grade, automated infiltrometers for high-integrity infiltration testing
TEROS sensors for real-time water potential, water content, EC, and temperature profiles
ZL6 data loggers + ZENTRA Cloud for reliable, remote data access
Whether you’re managing a pilot study or deploying across a watershed, METER systems help you track contaminants where it matters most: before they reach the water table.
Reliable, accurate data: simplified
Monitoring solute movement shouldn’t require a patchwork of disconnected tools or a field crew on standby. We’ve built an integrated, end-to-end approach that works from day one and scales with your site, your team, and your timeline.
Here’s how to begin:
Define your contaminant transport goals: Are you tracking nitrate, salt, or pesticides? Are you monitoring infiltration or drainage?
Select a package built for your needs: We’ll guide you to the right sensor combination based on your soil profile and depth targets.
Install quickly and cleanly: With intuitive hardware, trench-ready designs, and remote logger sync, you quickly be up and running.
Access and share data anytime: ZENTRA Cloud lets you visualize EC spikes, correlate with rainfall events, and export reports instantly.
Move from reactive
to predictive
When leaching goes undetected, it doesn’t go away, it accumulates. Missed data means missed mitigation. It means:
Reactive reporting instead of proactive intervention
Funding questions you can’t answer
Public consequences you can’t undo
Funding questions you can’t answer
Public consequences you can’t undo
With METER, you move from reactive to predictive. You know exactly when an event occurs, how deep it went, and what that means for your soil and groundwater. Your team doesn’t have to question whether the EC reading is accurate or if the logger missed a spike because it didn’t. You can:
Correlate events to outcomes in real time
Validate land management practices with hard data
Meet and exceed compliance thresholds
Show stakeholders what’s working and what needs work
Validate land management practices with hard data
Meet and exceed compliance thresholds
Show stakeholders what’s working and what needs work
“The whole catalog that METER Group produces is being used in the mining industry in Australia…from the planning stage to the operational to the closing down of projects…METER Group has a big role in what we do here in terms of environmental management and environmental research.”
– Senior Adjunct Research Fellow Michael Forster, PhD | Griffith University, Queensland, Australia
Leaching & contaminant transport solutions
Streamline your workflow, reduce time in the field, and lead with insight that moves projects, protects ecosystems, and earns trust. Whether you’re working under EPA regulation, watershed permit, or university research grant, we make it easier to get the data that defends your decisions and strengthens your impact. Explore METER leaching and contaminant transport solutions.
Accurately measure deep drainage and leaching using a METER Drain Gauge Lysimeter, or add an ATMOS 41 All In One Weather Station and TEROS water content sensors to quantify the water balance at your measurement site
Soil Moisture
Plant growth, microbial activity, nutrient availability and transport, soil erosion, soil compaction, soil respiration, water infiltration and drainage are all dependent on soil moisture. Measure the amount of water, its availability, and predict where it will move with our water content and water potential sensors.
Measure both water content and availability at a single site by installing TEROS water content sensors and TEROS water potential sensors at multiple depths
Measure the soil moisture profile at multiple depths using a single TEROS profile probe or multiple TEROS water content sensors, all connected to a cloud enabled data logger
Surface and Ground Water Level Monitoring
Track groundwater recharge, water flows through canals or channels, or solute concentration using all-in-one sensors. Combining these sensors with a remote data logger allows you monitor water quality and levels across a wide area without frequent site visits.
Surface and Ground Water Level Monitoring
Software Model for Ground Water Depth
Apply the HYDROS 21 and a cloud connected ZL6 Data Logger to remotely monitor surface and groundwater levels.
Lab Soil Characterization
LABROS is an innovative collection of soil science laboratory instruments, each designed to work individually or as part of a larger, automated system. Conduct Automated Particle Size Analysis and measure Soil Moisture Release Curves, Saturated and Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity, Thermal Conductivity from a single sample.
Get a complete soil moisture release curve using VARIOS and WP4C lab instruments and LABROS software
Streamline your soil characterization methods by using the LABROS suite of laboratory instruments and software to perform accurate, automated analyses from a single soil sample
Measure both saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity from a single soil sample using HYPROP and KSAT laboratory instruments
Field Hydraulic Properties
Measure the movement and distribution of water in the soil to inform water management, predict soil behavior under a variety of moisture conditions, measure groundwater recharge, or optimize agricultural practices for efficient water usage. Field instruments like the SATURO set the standard for simple, accurate, and time-efficient data collection.
Field Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity
Field Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity
Field Moisture Release Curve
Water Potential
- TEROS 32 Z
Generate in situ soil moisture retention curves using TEROS water content sensors, water potential sensors, and tensiometers installed at multiple depths
Get accurate, in situ hydraulic conductivity measurements with less water and simpler processes using SATURO and the Mini Disk Infiltrometer
ZENTRA System
Customize your data collection and logging solution by combining multiple METER sensors with the ZL6 Data Logger and ZENTRA Cloud. ZENTRA stores your data in the cloud, allowing easy access to your data and near-real-time reports from all of your data loggers.
Avoid costly field visits by accessing your data from any web-connected device. Analyze it with ZENTRA Cloud’s built-in visualization tools, and easily share insights without tracking down log files on individual computers.
LABROS System
Streamline your laboratory analyses and reduce human error using the innovative LABROS soil science laboratory collection. Perform automated particle size analysis, generate soil moisture release curves, or measure thermal and hydraulic conductivity with METER laboratory instruments designed to produce accurate analyses in a fraction of the time of other methods.
Even better, LABROS instruments can be combined to perform all of these analyses from a single sample, saving time and reducing measurement errors due to variations in sample characteristics.
METER is trusted by
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