Soilphysics: A suite of tools to fit and compare water retention curves

Abstract

AbstractWater content plays a central role in soil physical dynamic processes. The relationship between water content and matric potential is key to understand many of these processes. However, there is not one but at least half a dozen parametric models that can properly describe that relationship, which might have different levels of complexity, varying from soil to soil. Thus, fitting some of those models is not always a trivial task. Moreover, few computational resources are currently available to do this; or else, they can be of complex use as the models get more complex. Here, we present a suite of functionalities of the R package soilphysics that can be used to fit and statistically compare five water retention curve models, based on uni‐ or bimodal pore size distribution, using different approaches, from command line to interactive and automatized tools in user‐friendly interfaces. The interactive approaches can also serve as didactic mechanisms, as they can help the user to understand how the water retention curve model fits the experimental data. soilphysics is freely available from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN; https://CRAN.R‐project.org/package=soilphysics). The functionalities presented here are available from versions 4.1 or later; some tools can also run online.