Use of an inverse method and geostatistics to estimate soil hydraulic conductivity for spatial variability analysis

Abstract

A field method for determining the soil hydraulic properties using a parameter estimation technique is presented. Input data for the inverse problem are soil-water potentials and soil-water contents measured at different soil depths and different times during a field transient drainage experiment. For the water retention function the parametric relation suggested by Van Genuchten was adopted. For the hydraulic conductivity function the relation proposed by Van Genuchten and the exponential relation were adopted. With the proposed method soil hydraulic properties along a transect of a volcanic Vesuvian soil were determined using as boundary condition the unit gradient of total potential at the bottom of the soil profile. Geostatistics were used to describe the spatial variability of hydraulic conductivity characteristics of the soil here considered. Finally, results obtained using this method were compared with those of the simplified method suggested by Sisson and Van Genuchten based on a unit gradient water flow model.