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Use of soil physical characteristics from laboratory measurements or standard series for modelling unsaturated water flow
- Source :
- Agricultural Water Management 29 (1996) 2, Agricultural Water Management, 29(2), 201-213
- Publication Year :
- 1996
-
Abstract
- Soil physical characteristics are important input parameters for simulation modelling of unsaturated flow in soils and associated solute flow. The determination of soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves in the laboratory is laborious and expensive. For modelling studies that require characteristics for many soil horizons, such as regional studies or scenario studies, it may be impossible to measure all the necessary characteristics. An alternative would be to use characteristics inferred from readily available soil data by class-pedotransfer functions. In this study such a comparison was made for six sites on sandy soils in the Netherlands using the soil-water model SWACROP with soil physical characteristics from either laboratory measurements or from a standard series as input. For this the simulated pressure head values and moisture content values were compared with measured values at eight different depths using statistical criteria. Furthermore two functional criteria, i.e. the number of workable days and number of days with possible drought, were inferred from simulated pressure head values and again the different results were compared. It was found that simulation results were not significantly different, implying that standard series or class-pedotransfer functions could be used in studies like these for simulating the unsaturated water flow regime in sandy soils on field/farm level or regional level. Differences for specific criteria for individual sites were sometimes substantial and in such cases (at field level) it will make a difference which soil physical characteristics are used.
- Subjects :
- Hydraulics
Water flow
Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land, Soil and Water Research
Soil and Water Research
Soil Science
infiltration
law.invention
models
infiltratie
Hydraulic conductivity
law
Staring Centrum
kwel
Water content
modellen
Earth-Surface Processes
Water Science and Technology
Hydrology
research
seepage
onderzoek
Pressure head
Infiltration (hydrology)
hydraulisch geleidingsvermogen
Soil water
Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land
Environmental science
Soil horizon
Agronomy and Crop Science
hydraulic conductivity
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 03783774
- Volume :
- 29
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Agricultural Water Management
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....6f2d3fa5b19961ecb5eb751d065a0cc4