Water characteristic functions of 351 undisturbed soil cores taken at three
profiles on a two-dimensional regular grid with a spacing of 0.15 m are sh
own to vary linearly and nonlinearly in space. To describe their heterogene
ity, linear and nonlinear scaling factors are independently derived with so
il horizons as separate similarity classes. Their estimated empirical distr
ibutions are different, and the spatial statistics show a comparable integr
al scale only in the horizontal direction (similar to 0.15 m). In the verti
cal direction, nonlinear scaling factors exhibit an integral scale of simil
ar to 0.2 m, and linear scaling factors exhibit a pure nugget effect. On a
small sample subset, other soil material properties (e.g., texture) were al
so analyzed. In a multiple linear regression between those material propert
ies and scaling factors the organic carbon content is a significant determi
nistic factor at the site.