Measuring near‐saturated hydraulic conductivity of soils by quasi unit‐gradient percolation—2. Application of the methodology

Abstract

AbstractSarkar et al. (this issue) proposed a laboratory measurement method for obtaining the hydraulic conductivity of soil at near‐saturated moisture conditions, bridging the gap between measurements that can be obtained with the evaporation method in the medium dry region, and measurements of the saturated conductivity by traditional methods. The method is based on a tension infiltration on a limited part of the surface of a soil sample and drainage of the sample at the same tension, leading to a divergent flow field. Despite equal tensions at top and bottom of the sample (“unit gradient”), the water flux in the sample is smaller than the corresponding value of the soil hydraulic conductivity at the applied tension. From numerical analysis of the flow problem, they concluded that unsaturated conductivity can be obtained with an accuracy of 10% for all texture classes of the USDA soil texture triangle. In this paper, we test the methodology for three different soil types using an appropriate apparatus. The results match well with independent saturated conductivity measurements on the wet side, and with unsaturated conductivity measurements in the medium moisture range that were obtained with the evaporation method.