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Estimating Relative Hydraulic Conductivity from the Water Release Characteristic of a Shrinking Clay Soil by Andrew S. Gregory; Nigel R. A. Bird; W. Richard Whalley; G. Peter Matthews is a Environmental Science article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Estimating Relative Hydraulic Conductivity from the Water Release Characteristic of a Shrinking Clay Soil about?

To understand the hydraulic properties of soils, accurate prediction of the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity is needed, which is commonly derived from the soil water release characteristic. In fine‐textured soils, the modified Mualem–van Genuchten (MMVG) function has been used extensively to predict the change in relative conductivity with changes in matric potential, but this assumes that the soil is rigid with a constant porosity (CP), which is unrealistic for shrinking soils. We used a triaxial cell apparatus to accurately monitor soil volume changes during water release in a clay soil. From this we derived relative hydraulic conductivity functions based on either MMVG (CP), or based on geometrically similar shrinkage (GSS) of all pore sizes by a constant factor as calculated from the measured shrinking porosity (SP). The MMVG (CP) function predicted a decline in relative conductivity of up to three orders of magnitude from 0 to −400 kPa matric potential. This was similar to published data on the response of conductivity in the same soil to consolidation of larger pores. Based on SP, however, the soil remained effectively tension saturated (>0.97) down to a matric potential of

Who reads Estimating Relative Hydraulic Conductivity from the Water Release Characteristic of a Shrinking Clay Soil?

Author

Andrew S. Gregory; Nigel R. A. Bird; W. Richard Whalley; G. Peter Matthews

Publisher

The American Society of Agronomy; Soil Science Society of America; Wiley (ISSN 0361-5995)

Published

2010

Language

EN

Field

Environmental Science (Physical Sciences)