scholarly journals Pedotransfer Functions for Predicting Soil Hydraulic Properties in Semi-Arid Regions of Karnataka Plateau, India

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (7) ◽  
pp. 1237 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Dharumarajan ◽  
Rajendra Hegde ◽  
M. Lalitha ◽  
B. Kalaiselvi ◽  
S. K. Singh
2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1200-1209 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Tombul ◽  
Z. Akyürek ◽  
A. Ünal Sorman

Abstract. Spatial and temporal variations in soil hydraulic properties such as soil moisture q(h) and hydraulic conductivity K(q) or K(h), may affect the performance of hydrological models. Moreover, the cost of determining soil hydraulic properties by field or laboratory methods makes alternative indirect methods desirable. In this paper, various pedotransfer functions (PTFs) are used to estimate soil hydraulic properties for a small semi-arid basin (Kurukavak) in the north-west of Turkey. The field measurements were a good fit with the retention curve derived using Rosetta SSC-BD for a loamy soil. To predict parameters to describe soil hydraulic characteristics, continuous PTFs such as Rosetta SSC-BD (Model H3) and SSC-BD-q33q1500 (Model H5) have been applied. Using soil hydraulic properties that vary in time and space, the characteristic curves for three soil types, loam, sandy clay loam and sandy loam have been developed. Spatial and temporal variations in soil moisture have been demonstrated on a plot and catchment scale for loamy soil. It is concluded that accurate site-specific measurements of the soil hydraulic characteristics are the only and probably the most promising method to progress in the future. Keywords: soil hydraulic properties, soil characteristic curves, PTFs


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Schwartz Madsen ◽  
Bo Vangsø Iversen ◽  
Christen Duus Børgesen

<p>Modelling is often used to acquire information on water and nutrient fluxes within and out of the root zone. The models require detailed information on the spatial variability of soil hydraulic properties derived from soil texture and other soil characteristics using pedotransfer functions (PTFs). Soil texture can vary considerably within a field and is cumbersome and expensive to map in details using traditionally measurements in the laboratory. The electrical conductivity (EC) of the soil have shown to correlate with its textural composition.</p><p>This study investigates the ability of electromagnetic induction (EMI) methods to predict clay content in three soil layers of the root zone. As the clay fraction often is a main predictor in PTFs predicting soil hydraulic properties this parameter is of high interest. EMI and soil textural surveys on four Danish agricultural fields with varying textural composition were used. Sampling density varied between 0.5 and 38 points per hectare. The EMI data was gathered with a Dualem21 instrument with a sampling density 200-3000 points per hectare. The EC values were used together with the measured values of the clay content creating a statistical relationship between the two variables. Co-kriging of the clay content from the textural sampling points with the EC as auxiliary variable produces clay content maps of the fields. Unused (80%) texture points were used for validation. EMI-predicted clay content maps and clay content maps based on the survey were compared. The two sets of soil texture maps are used as predictors for PTF models to predict soil hydraulic properties as input in field-scale root zone modelling.</p><p>The comparisons between EC and clay content show some degree of correlation with an R<sup>2</sup> in the range of 0.55 to 0.80 for the four fields. The field with the highest average clay content showed the best relationship between the two parameters. Co-kriging with EC decreased mean error by 0.016 to 0.52 and RMSE by 0.04 to 1.80 between observed and predicted clay maps.</p>


2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya. Pachepsky ◽  
K. Rajkai ◽  
B. Tóth

Parameters governing the retention and movement of water and chemicals in soils are notorious for the difficulties and high labor costs involved in measuring them. Often, there is a need to resort to estimating these parameters from other, more readily available data, using pedotransfer relationships. This work is a mini-review that focuses on trends in pedotransfer development across the World, and considers trends regarding data that are in demand, data we have, and methods to build pedotransfer relationships. Recent hot topics are addressed, including estimating the spatial variability of water contents and soil hydraulic properties, which is needed in sensitivity analysis, evaluation of the model performance, multimodel simulations, data assimilation from soil sensor networks and upscaling using Monte Carlo simulations. Ensembles of pedotransfer functions and temporal stability derived from “big data” as a source of soil parameter variability are also described. Estimating parameter correlation is advocated as the pathway to the improvement of synthetic datasets. Upscaling of pedotransfer relationships is demonstrated for saturated hydraulic conductivity. Pedotransfer at coarse scales requires a different type of input variables as compared with fine scales. Accuracy, reliability, and utility have to be estimated independently. Persistent knowledge gaps in pedotransfer development are outlined, which are related to regional soil degradation, seasonal changes in pedotransfer inputs and outputs, spatial correlations in soil hydraulic properties, and overland flow parameter estimation. Pedotransfer research is an integral part of addressing grand challenges of the twenty-first century, including carbon stock assessments and forecasts, climate change and related hydrological weather extreme event predictions, and deciphering and managing ecosystem services. Overall, pedotransfer functions currently serve as an essential instrument in the science-based toolbox for diagnostics, monitoring, predictions, and management of the changing Earth and soil as a life-supporting Earth system.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 2615-2635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitta Szabó ◽  
Gábor Szatmári ◽  
Katalin Takács ◽  
Annamária Laborczi ◽  
András Makó ◽  
...  

Abstract. Spatial 3-D information on soil hydraulic properties for areas larger than plot scale is usually derived using indirect methods such as pedotransfer functions (PTFs) due to the lack of measured information on them. PTFs describe the relationship between the desired soil hydraulic parameter and easily available soil properties based on a soil hydraulic reference dataset. Soil hydraulic properties of a catchment or region can be calculated by applying PTFs on available soil maps. Our aim was to analyse the performance of (i) indirect (using PTFs) and (ii) direct (geostatistical) mapping methods to derive 3-D soil hydraulic properties. The study was performed on the Balaton catchment area in Hungary, where density of measured soil hydraulic data fulfils the requirements of geostatistical methods. Maps of saturated water content (0 cm matric potential), field capacity (−330 cm matric potential) and wilting point (−15 000 cm matric potential) for 0–30, 30–60 and 60–90 cm soil depth were prepared. PTFs were derived using the random forest method on the whole Hungarian soil hydraulic dataset, which includes soil chemical, physical, taxonomical and hydraulic properties of some 12 000 samples complemented with information on topography, climate, parent material, vegetation and land use. As a direct and thus geostatistical method, random forest combined with kriging (RFK) was applied to 359 soil profiles located in the Balaton catchment area. There were no significant differences between the direct and indirect methods in six out of nine maps having root-mean-square-error values between 0.052 and 0.074 cm3 cm−3, which is in accordance with the internationally accepted performance of hydraulic PTFs. The PTF-based mapping method performed significantly better than the RFK for the saturated water content at 30–60 and 60–90 cm soil depth; in the case of wilting point the RFK outperformed the PTFs at 60–90 cm depth. Differences between the PTF-based and RFK mapped values are less than 0.025 cm3 cm−3 for 65 %–86  % of the catchment. In RFK, the uncertainty of input environmental covariate layers is less influential on the mapped values, which is preferable. In the PTF-based method the uncertainty of mapping soil hydraulic properties is less computationally intensive. Detailed comparisons of maps derived from the PTF-based method and the RFK are presented in this paper.


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