Assessing the value of electrical resistivity derived soil water content: insights from a case study in the Critical Zone of the Chinese Loess Plateau

•Noninvasive approach for obtaining soil water content is proposed.•Soil water content is indirectly obtained from electrical resistivity.•Prediction models for soil water content were built for different soil conditions.•The proposed approach was applied at the Chinese Loess Plateau for validation.•Models for deep soil gave better results and may be applied to other loess regions.