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Soil moisture is one of the key hydrologic components indicating the performance of landfill final covers. Conventional compacted clay (CC) covers and evapotranspiration (ET) covers often suffer from moisture-induced stresses, such as desiccation cracking and irreversible hydraulic conductivity. Engineered turf (EnT) cover systems have been introduced recently as an alternative; however, their field-scale moisture distribution behavior remains unexplored. This study investigates and compares the soil moisture distribution characteristics of EnT, ET, and CC landfill covers at a shallow depth using one year of field-monitored data in a humid subtropical region. Three full-scale test Sections (3 m × 3 m × 1.2 m) were constructed side by side and instrumented with moisture sensors at a depth of 0.3 m. Distributional characteristics of moisture were evaluated with descriptive statistics, goodness-of-fit tests such as Shapiro–Wilk (SW) and Anderson–Darling (AD), Gaussian probability density functions, Q–Q plots, and standard-normal transformations. Results revealed that Shapiro–Wilk (W = 0.75–0.92, p < 0.001) and Anderson–Darling (A2=1.63×103to6.31×103,p<0.001) tests rejected normality for every cover, while Levene’s test showed unequal variances between EnT and the other covers (F>5.4×104,p<0.001) but equivalence between CC and ET (F = 0.23, p = 0.628). EnT cover exhibited the narrowest moisture envelope (95%range=0.156to0.240m3/m3; CV=10.6%), whereas ET and CC covers showed markedly broader distributions (CV = 38.6 % and 33.3 %, respectively). These findings demonstrated that EnT cover maintains a more stable shallow soil moisture profile under dynamic weather conditions.