Predicting unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of soil based on some basic soil properties

Soil hydraulic conductivity is a crucial parameter in modeling Row process in soils and deciding water management. In this study, by combining the non -similar media concept (NSMC) to the one-parameter model of Brooks and Core y, a new NSMC-based model for estimating unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of various soils was presented. The main inputs are soil bulk density, par ticle-size distribution. soil water retention characteristic and saturated hydraulic conductivity of soil. The results indicated that the NSMC-based m odel could generally more accurately predict unsaturated hydraulic conducti vity of soils, as compared to four one-parameter models and van Genuchten-M ualem model. This study. by introducing NSMC, provided a new way to incorpo rate soil physical heterogeneity into soil hydraulic simulation, and hence NSMC-based approach is expected to improve efficiency of the existing model s in the simulation of soil water flow. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.