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A new and simple method for measuring in situ field-saturated hydraulic conductivity using a falling-head single cylinder

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A Correction to this article was published on 01 January 2018

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Abstract

Hydraulic properties of soil play important roles in water and temperature regimes. Measuring hydraulic properties has been studied for decades in the laboratory and in the fields. In 1989 the Guelph Permeameter was introduced to measure in situ field-saturated hydraulic conductivity, K fs, but it required an empirical constant. Until recently, no procedure had been introduced to in situ measure K fs without an empirical constant. In this article, we proposed a new simple method to measure K fs. Field and laboratory measurements for volcanic ash origin Kanto loam, loess, and Toyoura sand were taken using a metallic cylinder (30 cm long and 4.5 cm inner diameter) or a PVC cylinder (30 cm long and 5.0 cm inner diameter) installed into soil down to a 5 cm depth. Temporal changes in water depth or hydraulic head inside the cylinder were measured with a laser measure. Values of K fs measured with this proposed method agreed well with saturated hydraulic conductivity measured in the laboratory for undisturbed soil cores. New analytical solution was derived for a future automated device for this purpose.

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Change history

  • 13 February 2018

    In the original publication of this article, the equation 12 had a typographical error and has been incorrectly published online. Now the correct equation has been provided in this erratum.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly supported by the 2016 Meiji University International Collaborative Research Project, the 2016 Research Grant of the Meiji University Promoting Education and Research Foundation, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) of JSPS (Project # 25252044).

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Correspondence to Kosuke Noborio.

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A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-018-0631-5.

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Noborio, K., Ito, Y., He, H. et al. A new and simple method for measuring in situ field-saturated hydraulic conductivity using a falling-head single cylinder. Paddy Water Environ 16, 81–87 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-017-0617-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-017-0617-8

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