Estimation of Shape Factor of Soil Hydraulic Conductivity Function of van Genuchten – Mualem Model Using Easily-Available Soil Properties

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD Candidate of Irrigation and Drainage., Dept. of Water Eng., Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

2 Professor, Dept. of Water Eng., Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

3 Professor, Dept. of Soil Sciences., Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Abstract

Proper soil hydraulic functions that accurately predict soil water characteristic curve and hydraulic conductivity are essential for studies of unsaturated flow in soils. In this study, 8 soils from different texture classes of UNSODA soil bank were selected and the optimal validity of shape factor (n) of the RETC software (using retention curve function of van Genuchten-Mualem (VGM) model) was investigated for predicting the value of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity at different moisture contents. Since the predicted results of this model were poor, we attempted to investigate a separate shape factor such as  for the hydraulic conductivity-moisture (K-θ) function of VGM Model. To this end, 24 soil samples from different texture classes of UNSODA were selected and their measured parameters were analyzed by regression analysis to find a suitable pedotransfer function for estimating . The developed function confirmed the relationship of  with both saturated moisture (θs) and organic matter contents with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.745 at significant level of P = 0.0005. Also, to validate the developed pedotransfer function, the hydraulic conductivity values ​​corresponding to the measured moistures for the 8 selected soils in the validation section were calculated based on the two shape factors obtained from the pedotransfer function ( ) and the RETC (n) and the results were compared with the measured values. The statistical indices of root mean square error of model (RMSEM) and Nash-Sutcliff model efficiency coefficient  (NSE) showed that the shape factor of the developed pedotransfer function compared to the RETC, had a better performance in predicting unsaturated hydraulic conductivity values.
 

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