Abstract: Rapid acquirement of soil moisture changes of the desert in early spring is of great significance to monitor the germination and growth condition of plants. To measure the soil water distribution of sand dunes，ground-penetrating radar （GPR） was used to carry out a number of field measurements in at south edge of the Gurbantunggut Desert，Xinjiang，China April 2010，obtaining initially consistent results through extracting and analyzing the direct ground wave signals. Time-domain reflectometry （TDR） measurements were also aggregated to support GPR results. It is showed that the soil water content derived from GPR direct ground wave was very close to the TDR results at a 20 cm depth，with the overall difference approximate to 0.02 cm3/cm3 or less，fully reflecting the effectiveness and accuracy of the GPR ground direct wave measurements. Additionally，The GPR derived surface soil water content indicated redistribution rules of snowmelt water in early spring. In larger scale snowmelt water immigrated from dune tops to interdune lowlands along the impermeable interface of the upper boundary of frozen soil，forming a distribution pattern of soil water content as lowest in dune tops，highest in interdune bottoms and intermediate on slopes；while in interdune lowlands at a small scale，the surface soil water content had been redistributed under the influence of low shrubs and grasses，as the snow and frozen soil around plant stems first melt，which formed such stem-centered funnel holes and collected more melt water，and the taller [Haloxylon] trees with relevantly fewer stems contributed less to the redistribution of surface moisture. In conclusion，the GPR methods can rapidly obtain an accurate，continuous，detailed information about soil water distribution and provide an important data base to research soil hydrological processes and the influencing factors in intermediate scales.

Key words: soil water content, redistribution of melt water, ground-penetrating radar, direct ground wave, the Gurbantunggut Desert