Measurement of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity using tension and drip infiltrometers

We investigated differences between constant flux and constant potential methods for determining unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in the laboratory. A cheap and robust method was required. The constant flux drip infiltrometer has been used with large intact cores on a wide range of Australian soils. However, the method can be simplified by replacing the drip infiltrometer with a constant potential tension infiltrometer (disc permeameter). We conducted a series of measurements using 9 soil cores to determine whether the measured hydraulic conductivity differed with each method at matric potentials of –10, –20, or –50 mm. Hysteresis effects were also examined because tension infiltrometer measurements are usually made on the adsorption curve of the hydraulic conductivity and matric potential [K(Ψ)] relationship. Drip infiltrometer measurements are often made on the desorption curve. The reproducibility of measurements on a single core was also examined. A large decline in K(Ψ ) was observed on some cores with repeated measurements and this effect was larger than differences between the methods. In the absence of evidence of slaking or dispersion, the suspected cause of the decline in K(Ψ) was clogging of pores from accumulation of microbial biomass and their by-products. The results support the view that K(Ψ) in some soils is a dynamic property. There were consistent differences between the constant flux and constant potential methods on those soil cores not exhibiting a large decline in K(Ψ) (the others were omitted from the method comparison). The tension infiltrometer method indicated greater hydraulic conductivity in soils with well-developed macrostructure when matric potential was greater than –50 mm. Hysteresis effects were significant with both methods and measurements made on desorption and adsorption curves are not considered comparable. Overall, we concluded that the tension infiltrometer method was more suited than the drip method for routine processing of large numbers of samples at low cost.