Many practical hydrological, meteorological and agricultural management problems require estimates of soil moisture with an areal footprint equivalent to "field scale", integrated over the entire root zone. The cosmic-ray neutron probe is a promising instrument to provide field scale areal coverage, but these observations are shallow and require depth scaling in order to be considered representative of the entire root zone. A study to identify appropriate depth-scaling techniques was conducted

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... t a grazing pasture site in central Saskatchewan, Canada over a two year period. Area-averaged soil moisture was assessed using a cosmic-ray neutron probe. Root zone soil moisture was measured at 21 locations within the 500² m² area, using a down-hole neutron probe. The cosmic-ray neutron probe was found to provide accurate estimates of field scale surface soil moisture, but accounted for less than 40 % of the seasonal change in root zone storage due to its shallow measurement depth. The root zone estimation methods evaluated were: (1) the coupling of the cosmic-ray neutron probe with a time stable neutron probe monitoring location, (2) coupling the cosmic-ray neutron probe with a representative landscape unit monitoring approach, and (3) convolution of the cosmic-ray neutron probe measurements with the exponential filter. The time stability method provided the best estimate of root zone soil moisture (RMSE = 0.004 cm³ cm⁻³), followed by the exponential filter (RMSE = 0.012 cm³ cm⁻³). The landscape unit approach, which required no calibration, had a negative bias but estimated the cumulative change in storage reasonably. The feasibility of applying these methods to field sites without existing instrumentation is discussed. It is concluded that the exponential filter method has the most potential for estimating root zone soil moisture from cosmic-ray neutron probe data.