Premium
Influence of Organic Matter on the Estimation of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity
Author(s) -
Nemes Attila,
Rawls Walter J.,
Pachepsky Yakov A.
Publication year - 2005
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/sssaj2004.0055
Subject(s) - pedotransfer function , hydraulic conductivity , soil water , soil science , organic matter , water content , environmental science , mathematics , geotechnical engineering , chemistry , geology , organic chemistry
Estimation of soil hydraulic properties by pedotransfer functions (PTFs) can be used in many applications. Some of existing PTFs estimate saturated hydraulic conductivity ( K s ) of the soil, using organic matter (OM) content as one of the input variables. Several authors have shown an increase in K s with increasing OM content, a soil property that presumably improves soil structure. We used three popular PTFs to examine the relationship between OM content and K s We also used data originating from the U.S., Hungary, and the European HYPRES database, to develop additional PTFs with the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH). It appears that existing PTFs negatively correlate K s with OM content for some soils. We found indications of negative relationship between OM content and K s with the newly developed PTFs both for directly estimated K s , and for K s estimated via the effective porosity of the soil, using a generalized Kozeny–Carman approach. It is not straightforward to define the exact range of soils with the inverse relationship between OM and K s The range appeared to be data set dependent, but it was extensive within the valid input range of each PTF.