Abstract
The soil water retention curve (SWRC) is significant for predicting soil physical properties and solute processes. However, the existing methods for obtaining SWRC are mainly focused on laboratory measurements and have some limitations in efficiency. Thus, this study attempts to build a new SWRC estimation method using soil resistivity data in porous media based on field conditions. The key of obtaining the SWRC is determining the soil moisture and the corresponding soil suction. In this study, soil resistivity and moisture were determined in the laboratory. The relationship between resistivity and soil moisture was then determined by the Archie equation. The quantitative relationship between resistivity and soil suction was constructed using measured data and empirical models. The results show that the Archie equation could be applied to precisely determine the relationship between soil resistivity and soil moisture when the soil resistivity ranged from 100 to 800 Ω · m. Both the van Genuchten (VG) model and the Gardner model were able to fit the SWRC. For the sandy soils involved in this study, the fitting results of the VG model were better than those of the Garden model. The soil resistivity–matrix suction relationship was established to obtain the SWRC by combination with the soil resistivity–water content model. The proposed method was then tested, and it showed great accuracy and reliability in estimating the SWRC and provided a method and theoretical basis for accurately measuring the SWRC on a regional scale.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. The paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41702247 and 41701312) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFC0402502).
References
Archie, G. E. 1942. “The electrical resistivity log as an aid in determining some reservoir characteristics.” Trans. AIME 146 (01): 54–62. https://doi.org/10.2118/942054-G.
Beriozkin, A., and Y. Mualem. 2018. “Comparative analysis of the apparent saturation hysteresis approach and the domain theory of hysteresis in respect of prediction of scanning curves and air entrapment.” Adv. Water Resour. 115 (May): 253–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2018.01.016.
Binley, A., G. Cassiani, R. Middleton, and P. Winship. 2002b. “Vadose zone flow model parameterisation using cross-borehole radar and resistivity imaging.” J. Hydrol. 267 (3–4): 147–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(02)00146-4.
Binley, A., P. Winship, L. J. West, M. Pokar, and R. Middleton. 2002a. “Seasonal variation of moisture content in unsaturated sandstone inferred from borehole radar and resistivity profiles.” J. Hydrol. 267 (3–4): 160–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(02)00147-6.
Campbell, G. S. 1974. “A simple method for determining unsaturated conductivity from moisture retention data.” Soil Sci. 117 (6): 311–314. https://doi.org/10.1097/00010694-197406000-00001.
Carsel, R. F., and R. S. Parrish. 1988. “Developing joint probability distributions of soil water retention characteristics.” Water Resour. Res. 24 (5): 755–769. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR024i005p00755.
Castellini, M., S. Di Prima, and M. Iovino. 2018. “An assessment of the BEST procedure to estimate the soil water retention curve: A comparison with the evaporation method.” Geoderma 320 (May): 82–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2018.01.014.
Choo, H., and S. E. Burns. 2014. “Review of Archie’s equation through theoretical derivation and experimental study on uncoated and hematite coated soils.” J. Appl. Geophys. 105 (Jun): 225–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2014.03.024.
De Vita, P., R. Di Maio, and E. Piegari. 2012. “A study of the correlation between electrical resistivity and matric suction for unsaturated ash-fall pyroclastic soils in the Campania region (southern Italy).” Environ. Earth Sci. 67 (3): 787–798. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-012-1531-4.
de Witte, A. J. 1957. “Saturation and porosity from electric logs in shaly sands.” Oil Gas J. 55 (9): 89–97.
Ding, D., Y. Zhao, H. Feng, X. Peng, and B. Si. 2016. “Using the double-exponential water retention equation to determine how soil pore-size distribution is linked to soil texture.” Soil Tillage Res. 156 (Mar): 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2015.10.007.
Durner, W. 1994. “Hydraulic conductivity estimation for soils with heterogeneous pore structure.” Water Resour. Res. 30 (2): 211–223. https://doi.org/10.1029/93WR02676.
Ebrahim-Zadeh, G., H. Bayat, A. A. S. Sinegani, H. Z. Abyaneh, and H. Vereecken. 2017. “Investigating the correlation between soil tensile strength curve and soil water retention curve via modeling.” Soil Tillage Res. 167 (Apr): 9–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2016.11.002.
Gardner, W. R., D. Hillel, and Y. Benyamini. 1970. “Post-irrigation movement of soil water: 1. Redistribution.” Water Resour. Res. 6 (3): 851–861. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR006i003p00851.
Ghanbarian-Alavijeh, B., A. Liaghat, G.-H. Huang, and M. T. van Genuchten. 2010. “Estimation of the van Genuchten soil water retention properties from soil textural data.” Pedosphere 20 (4): 456–465. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(10)60035-5.
Gupta, S., and W. E. Larson. 1979. “Estimating soil water retention characteristics from particle size distribution, organic matter percent, and bulk density.” Water Resour. Res. 15 (6): 1633–1635. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR015i006p01633.
Haghverdi, A., H. S. Öztürk, and W. Durner. 2018. “Measurement and estimation of the soil water retention curve using evaporation method and pseudo continuous pedotransfer function.” J. Hydrol. 563 (Aug): 251–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2018.06.007.
Han, Z., and S. K. Vanapalli. 2015. “Model for predicting resilient modulus of unsaturated subgrade soil using soil-water characteristic curve.” Can. Geotech. J. 52 (10): 1605–1619. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2014-0339.
Haverkamp, R., S. Debionne, R. Angulo-Jaramillo, and D. de Condappa. 2016. “Soil properties and moisture movement in the unsaturated zone.” In The handbook of groundwater engineering, 167–208. 3rd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Jury, W. A., and L. H. Stolzy. 2018. “Soil physics.” In Handbook of soils and climate in agriculture, 131–158. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Khoshghalb, A., A. Y. Pasha, and N. Khalili. 2015. “A fractal model for volume change dependency of the water retention curve.” Géotechnique 65 (2): 141–146. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.14.T.016.
Klute, A. 1986. “Water retention: Laboratory methods.” In Methods of soil analysis: Part 1—Physical and mineralogical methods, (methodsofsoilan1), 635–662. Madison, WI: American Society of Agronomy.
Lu, D.-B., Q.-Y. Zhou, S. A. Junejo, and A.-L. Xiao. 2015. “A systematic study of topography effect of ERT based on 3-D modeling and inversion.” Pure Appl. Geophys. 172 (6): 1531–1546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-014-1015-4.
Mirus, B. B. 2015. “Evaluating the importance of characterizing soil structure and horizons in parameterizing a hydrologic process model.” Hydrol. Processes 29 (21): 4611–4623. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10592.
Osterman, G., K. Keating, A. Binley, and L. Slater. 2016. “A laboratory study to estimate pore geometric parameters of sandstones using complex conductivity and nuclear magnetic resonance for permeability prediction.” Water Resour. Res. 52 (6): 4321–4337. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR018472.
Ou, J., X. Zhang, and J. You. 2009. “River 3D visualization and analyzing technique using DEM.” In Proc., Int. Conf. on Information Engineering and Computer Science, 2009, ICIECS 2009, 1–4. New York: IEEE.
Qu, W., H. R. Bogena, J. A. Huisman, J. Vanderborght, M. Schuh, E. Priesack, and H. Vereecken. 2015. “Predicting subgrid variability of soil water content from basic soil information.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 42 (3): 789–796. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014GL062496.
Rajkai, K., S. Kabos, and M. T. van Genuchten. 2004. “Estimating the water retention curve from soil properties: Comparison of linear, nonlinear and concomitant variable methods.” Soil Tillage Res. 79 (2): 145–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2004.07.003.
Rasul, H., L. Zou, and B. Olofsson. 2018. “Monitoring of moisture and salinity content in an operational road structure by electrical resistivity tomography.” Near Surf. Geophys. 16 (4): 423–444. https://doi.org/10.1002/nsg.12002.
Russo, D. 1988. “Determining soil hydraulic properties by parameter estimation: On the selection of a model for the hydraulic properties.” Water Resour. Res. 24 (3): 453–459. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR024i003p00453.
Saxton, K. E., and W. J. Rawls. 2006. “Soil water characteristic estimates by texture and organic matter for hydrologic solutions.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 70 (5): 1569–1578. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2005.0117.
Seki, K. 2007. “SWRC fit–A nonlinear fitting program with a water retention curve for soils having unimodal and bimodal pore structure.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. 4 (1): 407–437. https://doi.org/10.5194/hessd-4-407-2007.
Sen, P. N., C. Scala, and M. H. Cohen. 1981. “A self-similar model for sedimentary rocks with application to the dielectric constant of fused glass beads.” Geophysics 46 (5): 781–795. https://doi.org/10.1190/1.1441215.
Thakur, V. K., S. Sreedeep, and D. N. Singh. 2005. “Parameters affecting soil–water characteristic curves of fine-grained soils.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng. 131 (4): 521–524. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241(2005)131:4(521).
Van Dam, R. L., W. W. Wood, D. W. Hyndman, B. P. Eustice, and C. T. Simmons. 2017. “Electrical resistivity tomography to image convective flow in groundwater: Examples from the United Arab Emirates Sabkha.” In Proc., Int. Conf. on Engineering Geophysics, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, 358–361. Tulsa, OK: Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
Vanella, D., G. Cassiani, L. Busato, J. Boaga, S. Barbagallo, A. Binley, and S. Consoli. 2018. “Use of small scale electrical resistivity tomography to identify soil-root interactions during deficit irrigation.” J. Hydrol. 556 (Jan): 310–324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.11.025.
van Genuchten, M. T. 1980. “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils 1.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 44 (5): 892–898. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj1980.03615995004400050002x.
Vereecken, H., A. Schnepf, J. W. Hopmans, M. Javaux, D. Or, T. Roose, J. Vanderborght, M. H. Young, W. Amelung, and M. Aitkenhead. 2016. “Modeling soil processes: Review, key challenges, and new perspectives.” Vadose Zone J. 15 (5): 1–57. https://doi.org/10.2136/vzj2015.09.0131.
Waxman, M. H., and L. J. M. Smits. 1968. “Electrical conductivities in oil-bearing shaly sands.” Soc. Pet. Eng. J. 8 (02): 107–122. https://doi.org/10.2118/1863-A.
Wei, W., J. Cai, X. Hu, and Q. Han. 2015. “An electrical conductivity model for fractal porous media.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 42 (12): 4833–4840. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064460.
Yustres, Á., R. López-Vizcaíno, C. Sáez, P. Cañizares, M. A. Rodrigo, and V. Navarro. 2018. “Water transport in electrokinetic remediation of unsaturated kaolinite. Experimental and numerical study.” Sep. Purif. Technol. 192 (Feb): 196–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2017.10.009.
Zhang, D., T. C. Wallstrom, and C. L. Winter. 1998. “Stochastic analysis of steady-state unsaturated flow in heterogeneous media: Comparison of the Brooks-Corey and Gardner-Russo models.” Water Resour. Res. 34 (6): 1437–1449. https://doi.org/10.1029/98WR00317.
Zhou, Q. Y., J. Shimada, and A. Sato. 2001. “Three-dimensional spatial and temporal monitoring of soil water content using electrical resistivity tomography.” Water Resour. Res. 37 (2): 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1029/2000WR900284.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 25 • Issue 6 • June 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 16, 2019
Accepted: Dec 20, 2019
Published online: Mar 26, 2020
Published in print: Jun 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Aug 26, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.