Abstract. In this paper, we present and analyze a novel global database of
soil infiltration measurements, the Soil Water Infiltration Global (SWIG)
database. In total, 5023 infiltration curves were collected across all
continents in the SWIG database. These data were either provided and quality
checked by the scientists who performed the experiments or they were
digitized from published articles. Data from 54 different countries were
included in the database with major contributions from Iran, China, and the USA.
In addition to its extensive geographical coverage, the collected
infiltration curves cover research from 1976 to late 2017. Basic information
on measurement location and method, soil properties, and land use was
gathered along with the infiltration data, making the database valuable for
the development of pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for estimating soil hydraulic
properties, for the evaluation of infiltration measurement methods, and for
developing and validating infiltration models. Soil textural information
(clay, silt, and sand content) is available for 3842 out of 5023 infiltration
measurements (∼ 76%) covering nearly all soil USDA textural classes
except for the sandy clay and silt classes. Information on land use is
available for 76 % of the experimental sites with agricultural land use as
the dominant type (∼ 40%). We are convinced that the SWIG database
will allow for a better parameterization of the infiltration process in land
surface models and for testing infiltration models. All collected data and
related soil characteristics are provided online in
*.xlsx and *.csv formats for reference, and we add a disclaimer that the
database is for public domain use only and can be copied freely by
referencing it. Supplementary data are available at
https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.885492 (Rahmati et al., 2018). Data
quality assessment is strongly advised prior to any use of this database.
Finally, we would like to encourage scientists to extend and update the SWIG database
by uploading new data to it.
Development and analysis of the Soil Water Infiltration Global database
