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Measuring the Spatial Variability of Soil Hydraulic Conductivity Using an Automatic Neutron Moisture Gauge
Author(s) -
Moutonnet P.,
Pluyette E.,
El Mourabit N.,
Couchat P.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj1988.03615995005200060001x
Subject(s) - hydraulic conductivity , water content , soil science , neutron probe , environmental science , transect , spatial variability , exponential decay , hydrology (agriculture) , soil water , neutron , geology , geotechnical engineering , mathematics , physics , neutron temperature , nuclear physics , neutron cross section , oceanography , statistics
Soil internal drainage was measured along a 100‐m transect with 20 neutron probe access tubes at 5‐m intervals using an automatic neutron moisture gauge and a tensiometer data logger. Geostatistical analysis of the measurement results (in terms of hydraulic conductivity, K , vs. water content, θ) at depths of 60 and 90 cm, showed no autocorrelation among the sites. Measurement results related to depths of 120 and 150 cm were deleted because of the lack of a unit hydraulic gradient. Variance analysis indicated that the 60‐ and 90‐cm layers values could be considered together as a unique soil layer. The exponential regression equation computed from 240 K (θ) pairs, gave correlation coefficient of 0.90 for this soil layer. The K variation coefficient between 32 and 40% θ was 75% for the 60‐ and 90‐cm soil depths. This value is consistent with other published findings.