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Assessment of improved soil hydraulic parameters for soil water content simulation and irrigation scheduling

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Abstract

The efficient irrigation systems utilizing numerical models based on Richard’s flow equation require key input parameters, soil hydraulic parameters (SHPs). The present study proposes a method to determine the SHPs from the soil water contents at field capacity and wilting point, which are determined for irrigation scheduling. It also compares them with the SHPs estimated by various pedotransfer functions (PTFs) to simulate respective soil water retention curves (SWRCs). High efficiencies of 70–80 % were obtained in simulating the SWRCs by the proposed method as compared to PTFs. In order to further assess the applicability of the SHPs as determined, the experiments were conducted under real field conditions for wheat crop in Roorkee, India, and SWRCs were experimentally determined. These different sets of SHPs, along with experimentally determined saturated permeability, were then used as input parameters in root water uptake model and the results of observed and simulated soil water contents were compared under three different irrigation treatments. It was found that the experimentally obtained SHPs and those obtained by the proposed method were able to simulate the soil water contents with efficiencies of 70–80 % at all the depths for all the three irrigation treatments, while the PTFs performed poorly.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support from University Grant Commission, Government of India, to Manika Gupta is acknowledged, for the time at IIT when the work was conducted. The authors would also like to thank National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, for providing facilities for soil physical analysis. The views expressed here are those of the authors solely and do not constitute a statement of policy, decision, or position on behalf of NASA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, India

    N. K. Garg & Manika Gupta

  2. Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research, Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD, USA

    Manika Gupta

  3. Hydrological Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20071, USA

    Manika Gupta

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  1. N. K. Garg
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Correspondence to Manika Gupta.

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Communicated by J. Li.

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Garg, N.K., Gupta, M. Assessment of improved soil hydraulic parameters for soil water content simulation and irrigation scheduling. Irrig Sci 33, 247–264 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-015-0463-7

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