This instrument measures the water content in soil from measurements of dielectric permittivity of the soil.

The data collected from stations like this one can provide an overall figure on changes in the climate and also can have important effects on agriculture. Their interest was immediately appreciated internationally. For example, the stations are included in the project of Share International CEOP (Co-ordinated Enhanced Obervation Period) World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which periodically collects data on the climate.

The automatic weather stations (AWS) for monitoring meteorological conditions are currently included in the SHARE network. An automatic weather station is defined as a "meteorological station at which observations are made and trasmitted automatically" (WMO, 1992 a). In particular, in the framework of the SHARE project for all parameters, the data has been visually checked, looking for extremely and unusual low/high values and/or periods with constant values. The AWS in Urdukas is a reference station in CEOP (Coordinated Energy and water cycle Observation Project) under the WMO's initiative World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) - Global Energy and Water cycles EXperiment (GEWEX).

The Urdukas AWS provides data (with a 60 minute time resolution of the following parameters:

- air temperature (°C)

- atmopherich pressure (hPa)

- relative humidity (%)

- total precipitation (mm)

- global solar radiation (W/m2)

- wind speed (m/s)

- wind direction (degree)