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.
Groundwater and vadose zone
As a hydrologist, you know gaps in data create gaps in certainty. But deep drainage and solute movement are hard to measure, especially with limited budgets, lab time, or underperforming tools. How much uncertainty could you eliminate if you had continuous, defensible data on water movement through the unsaturated zone instead of snapshots? Whether you're modeling recharge, tracking nutrient leaching, or validating land use impacts, you need insight you can trust and a system that works reliably in the field.
What you can’t see can hurt you
If your sensors drift, your readings lag, or your team wastes time on downloads and recalibration, the risk isn’t just bad data. It’s bad outcomes. You can’t afford to skip EC or volume measurements just because they’re difficult or expensive. When your goal is to understand runoff and watershed hydrology through underground soil measurements, a poor instrument choice or incomplete dataset can derail a project with:
Overcomplicated setups that break down in the field
Inaccurate EC data due to drift or inconsistent calibration
High labor costs for manual sampling
Inflexible systems that don’t scale with project size or site complexity
At METER, we’ve worked alongside hydrologists for decades, refining tools to make accurate, reliable environmental measurements without making the process more difficult than it needs to be.
Our research-grade sensors and automated data loggers are engineered for:
High-accuracy EC and water content measurements deep in the soil profile
Long-term reliability in wet or harsh environments
Scalable deployments that let you go from a single transect to a whole watershed
Real-time data access through ZENTRA Cloud, so you don’t have to wait for lab results to spot a trend
Whether it’s our automated SATURO infiltrometer or TEROS sensors designed for the unsaturated zone, we make it easier to connect what’s happening underground to what it means above ground.
Getting started is simple
Choose the right soil sensor or system: we’ll help you match the solution to your soil depth, EC range, and spatial resolution needs.
Install quickly and accurately using our guides or expert support team.
Visualize and share your data through ZENTRA Cloud to drive better decisions and collaboration. And use our open API or download-ready reports to feed models, meet compliance, or publish with confidence.
You’ll get everything you need for deep insights into runoff, drainage, watershed hydrology, and more, without derailing your budget or your time.
A trusted system
built for real-world hydrology
Every season you wait to improve system reliability and scalability is a season where nitrate may leach unnoticed, where a storm might trigger an unmeasured response, or where policy might be based on incomplete understanding.
Your data is complete, high-quality, and consistent.
Your EC readings hold up.
Your monitoring stations just work.
Your EC readings hold up.
Your monitoring stations just work.
With METER, your fieldwork becomes less about managing equipment and more about interpreting what matters.
You’re not just reporting what’s happening. You’re understanding why and helping others do the same.
“The [METER] water potential and soil moisture sensors yielded data proving LID areas were effective at capturing the water, infiltrating it more slowly, and essentially storing it in the aquifer.”
– Michelle Newcomer, Research Scienitst | San Francisco State University
Groundwater and vadose zone solutions
Without clear data from the vadose zone, your research, compliance work, or predictive modeling can suffer, and so can the ecosystems or communities that rely on it. Avoid missed drainage, misreported conductivity, and delayed interventions. Explore METER groundwater and vadose zone 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
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
Measure both saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity from a single soil sample using HYPROP and KSAT laboratory instruments
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
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
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
See how scientists, growers, and engineers have used METER solutions in the field.
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