Abstract
Determination of the saturated hydraulic conductivity (ks) is needed in many studies and applications related to irrigation, drainage, water movement and solute transport in the soil. Although many advances are made for direct measurements of ks, they are usually time consuming and costly. Some attempts have been made to indirectly predict the saturated hydraulic conductivity from the more easily or readily available basic soil properties. The objective of this study was to develop and validate Pedotransfer Functions (PTFs) for estimation of saturated hydraulic conductivity using multiple non-linear regression technique. One hundred and one soil samples were collected from agricultural and forest soils at different depths, at different locations in the Pavanje River basin that lies in the southern coastal region of Karnataka, India. Saturated hydraulic conductivity was measured, by variable falling head method through Permeameter in the laboratory. Prediction accuracies were evaluated using coefficient of determination, root mean square error, mean error, geometric mean error ratio and geometric standard deviation of the error ratio between measured and predicted values. The results show that, the PTFs for the estimation of saturated hydraulic conductivity could be used appropriately for the soils with loamy sand and sandy loam textures falling in this area of the coastal region of southern India.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
P. Heike and V. Klaus, “Pedotransfer functions for water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of forest soils,” J. Plant Nutr. Soil Sci. 175, 221–235 (2012).
D. H. Lee, “Comparing the inverse parameter estimation approach with pedotransfer function method for estimating soil hydraulic conductivity,” Geosci. J. 9, 269–276 (2005).
B. P. Mohanty and Z. Mousli, “Saturated hydraulic conductivity and soil water retention properties across a soil slope transition,” Water Resour. Res. 36, 3311–3324 (2000).
N. G. Pandey, B. Chakravorty, S. Kumar, and P. Mani, “Comparison of estimated saturated hydraulic conductivity for alluvial soils,” Hydrol. J. 28, 59–72 (2006).
E. V. Shein, “The particle-size distribution in soils: problems of the methods of study, interpretation of the results, and classification,” Eurasian Soil Sci. 42, 286–293 (2009).
E. V. Shein and T. A. Arkhangel’skaya, “Pedotransfer functions: state of the art, problems, and outlooks,” Eurasian Soil Sci. 39, 1089–1099 (2006).
P. Shwetha and K. Varija, “Soil water-retention prediction from pedotransfer functions for some Indian soils,” Arch. Agron. Soil Sci. 59, 1529–1543(2013).
O. Tietje and V. Hennings, “Accuracy of the saturated hydraulic conductivity prediction by pedotransfer functions compared to the variability within FAO textural classes,” Geoderma 69, 71–84 (1996).
B. J. van Alphen, H. W. G. Booltink, and J. Bouma, “Combining pedotransfer functions with physical measurements to improve the estimation of soil hydraulic properties,” Geoderma 103, 133–147 (2001).
A. Wahren, K. H. Feger, K. Schwarzel, and A. Munch, “Land use effects on flood generation-Considering soil hydraulic measurements in modeling,” Adv. Geosci. 21, 99–107 (2009).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The article is published in the original.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shwetha, P., Prasanna, K. Pedotransfer Functions for the Estimation of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity for Some Indian Sandy Soils. Eurasian Soil Sc. 51, 1042–1049 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229318090119
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229318090119