scholarly journals Soil texture and structure heterogeneity predominantly governs bulk density gradients around roots

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Phalempin ◽  
Eva Lippold ◽  
Doris Vetterlein ◽  
Steffen Schlüter
2008 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 761-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. P. Pollacco

Hydrological models require the determination of fitting parameters that are tedious and time consuming to acquire. A rapid alternative method of estimating the fitting parameters is to use pedotransfer functions. This paper proposes a reliable method to estimate soil moisture at -33 and -1500 kPa from soil texture and bulk density. This method reduces the saturated moisture content by multiplying it with two non-linear functions depending on sand and clay contents. The novel pedotransfer function has no restrictions on the range of the texture predictors and gives reasonable predictions for soils with bulk density that varies from 0.25 to 2.16 g cm-3. These pedotransfer functions require only five parameters for each pressure head. It is generally accepted that the introduction of organic matter as a predictor improves the outcomes; however it was found by using a porosity based pedotransfer model, using organic matter as a predictor only modestly improves the accuracy. The model was developed employing 18 559 samples from the IGBP-DIS soil data set for pedotransfer function development (Data and Information System of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme) database that embodies all major soils across the United States of America. The function is reliable and performs well for a wide range of soils occurring in very dry to very wet climates. Climatical grouping of the IGBP-DIS soils was proposed (aquic, tropical, cryic, aridic), but the results show that only tropical soils require specific grouping. Among many other different non-climatical soil groups tested, only humic and vitric soils were found to require specific grouping. The reliability of the pedotransfer function was further demonstrated with an independent database from Northern Italy having heterogeneous soils, and was found to be comparable or better than the accuracy of other pedotransfer functions found in the literature. Key words: Pedotransfer functions, soil moisture, soil texture, bulk density, organic matter, grouping


Geoderma ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 287 ◽  
pp. 66-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Ángel Martín ◽  
Miguel Reyes ◽  
F. Javier Taguas

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 445-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoting Xie ◽  
Yili Lu ◽  
Tusheng Ren ◽  
Robert Horton

Abstract Soil thermal diffusivity κ is an essential parameter for studying surface and subsurface heat transfer and temperature changes. It is well understood that κ mainly varies with soil texture, water content θ, and bulk density ρb, but few models are available to accurately quantify the relationship. In this study, an empirical model is developed for estimating κ from soil particle size distribution, ρb, and degree of water saturation Sr. The model parameters are determined by fitting the proposed equations to heat-pulse κ data for eight soils covering wide ranges of texture, ρb, and Sr. Independent evaluations with published κ data show that the new model describes the κ(Sr) relationship accurately, with root-mean-square errors less than 0.75 × 10−7 m2 s−1. The proposed κ(Sr) model also describes the responses of κ to ρb changes accurately in both laboratory and field conditions. The new model is also used successfully for predicting near-surface soil temperature dynamics using the harmonic method. The results suggest that this model provides useful estimates of κ from Sr, ρb, and soil texture.


2010 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Zhu ◽  
D. Sun

This paper presents an approach based on a conceptualization of combining the neural network based pedo-transfer function (PTF) results with the thin layer concept to explore capillary-pressure-dependent anisotropy in relation to soil texture and soil bulk density. The effects of capillary pressure (or saturation degree) on the hydraulic conductivity anisotropy of unsaturated soils are still poorly understood. The main objective is to examine how anisotropy characteristics are related to the relationships between hydraulic parameters and the basic soil attributes such as texture and bulk density. The hydraulic parameters are correlated with the texture and bulk density based on the pedo-transfer function (PTF) results. It is demonstrated that non-monotonic behavior of the unsaturated soil anisotropy in relation to the capillary pressure is only observed when the saturated hydraulic conductivity and the shape parameter are both related to the particle diameter. Therefore, it is suggested that this behavior is mainly due to the coupled dependence of the layer saturated hydraulic conductivities and the shape factors on the texture and bulk density. The results illustrate that the inter-relationships of soil texture, bulk density, and hydraulic properties may produce vastly different characteristics of anisotropic unsaturated soils.Key words: Anisotropy, unsaturated soils, capillary pressure-dependent


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Ángel Martín ◽  
Yakov A. Pachepsky ◽  
Carlos García-Gutiérrez ◽  
Miguel Reyes

Abstract. The soil texture representation with the standard textural fraction triplet 'sand-silt-clay' is commonly used to estimate soil properties. The objective of this work was to test the hypothesis that other fraction sizes in the triplets may provide better representation of soil texture for estimating some soil parameters. We estimated the cumulative particle size distribution and bulk density from entropy-based representation of the textural triplet with experimental data for 6300 soil samples. Results supported the hypothesis. For example, simulated distributions were not significantly different from the original ones in 25 and 85 % of cases when the 'sand-silt-sand' and 'very coarse+coarse + medium sand – fine +very fine sand – silt+clay', were used, respectively. When the same standard and modified triplets were used to estimate the average bulk density, the coefficients of determination were 0.001 and 0.967, respectively. Overall, the textural triplet selection appears to be application- and data-specific.


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