PREDICTION OF HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY FROM SOIL WATER RETENTION DATA

This article reports simple relationships among soil water content, θ, soil water potential, φ, and hydraulic conductivity, K, tested on five uniform soil materials, for which the necessary parameters were obtained in the laboratory, and on nine field soils, where the parameters were obtained in situ. Agreement between experimental K(θ) relationships and those calculated from saturated hydraulic conductivity and the water retention curve φ(θ) was good for four laboratory soils, but was only adequate in the high water content range for a fine sand. For the field soils, agreement was good for four soils, adequate in the higher water content range for two, and inadequate for three soils in the sandy loam to light clay range.