We explore a new approach to evaluate the effect of soil electromagnetic parameters on early-time ground-penetrating radar (GPR) signals. The analysis is performed in a time interval which contains the direct airwaves and ground waves, propagating between transmitting and receiving antennas. To perform the measurements we have selected a natural test site characterized by very strong lateral gradient of the soil electrical properties. To evaluate the effect of the subsoil permittivity and conductivity on the radar response we compare the envelope amplitude of the GPR signals received in the first [Formula: see text] within [Formula: see text]-wide windows, with the electrical properties ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]) determined using time-domain reflectometry (TDR). The results show that the constitutive soil parameters strongly influence early-time signals, suggesting a novel approach for estimating the spatial variability of water content with GPR.

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