Development and Application of Single-Parameter Soil Water Diffusivity Models for the Nanxiaohegou Basin
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 2
Abstract
Predicting soil water movement and the transport of pollutants requires a good understanding of soil hydraulic properties. One of the most important hydraulic properties of unsaturated soil is the soil water diffusivity. However, because this parameter exhibits significant spatial variation, monitoring the soil water diffusivity over a large area of land would require the acquisition of an impractically large number of measurements in order to avoid introducing significant errors. To address this issue, the soil water diffusivity was measured in 56 soil samples gathered from across the Nanxiaohegou basin. These experimental data were then used to derive single- and double-logarithmic models for predicting the soil moisture diffusivity for the basin as a whole and for specific soil and terrain types within the basin. A linear relationship was observed between the two parameters of the single-logarithmic model, making it possible to establish a third series of single-parameter models. All three model types yielded estimates that were in good agreement with the experimental results. In addition, analyses of the single-parameter models revealed that the parameter varied according to the nature of the sampled soil and terrain, suggesting that it may provide useful information about the spatial variation of the soil moisture diffusivity.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant number 51239009, 41171034) and Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (key) project (grant number 2013JZ012,SF1311-3,2013JC18). The reviewing editor and reviewers are gratefully thanked for their constructive comments.
References
Bruce, R. R., and Klute, A. (1956). “The measurement of soil water diffusivity.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc., 20(4), 458–462.
Campbell, G. S. (1974). “A simple method for determining unsaturated conductivity from moisture retention data.” Soil Sci., 117(6), 311–314.
Filogueira, R. R. (1999). “Comparison of fractal dimensions estimated from aggregate mass-size distribution and water retention scaling.” Soil Sci., 164(4), 217–223.
Gardner, W. R. (1956). “Calculation of capillary conductivity from pressure plate outflow data.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. Proc., 20(3), 317–320.
Gomendy, V. (1999). “Silty topsoil structure and its dynamics: The fractal approach.” Geoderma, 88(3–4), 165–189.
Jia, H., Kang, S., and Zhang, F. (2006). “One-parameter model of soil hydraulics parameters.” J. Hydraul. Eng., 37(3), 272–277 (in Chinese).
Kravchenko, A., and Zhang, R. (1998). “Estimating the soil water retention from particle-size distribution: A fractal approach.” Soil Sci., 163(3), 171–179.
Lei, Z., Yang, S., and Xie, S. (1988). Soil water dynamics, Tsinghua University Press, Beijing, 231–235 (in Chinese).
Li, Y., Qao, M., Yang, X., and Zhou, S. (2008). “Fractal characteristics of land use and land cover change in a watershed of arid zone in last 30 years: A case of the Manas River Watershed.” Arid Land Geog., 31(1), 75–81 (in Chinese).
Mandelbrot, B. B. (1977). Fractals: Form, chance and dimension, W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco, 15–25.
Perfect, E. (1996). “An improved fractal equation for the soil water retention curve.” Water Resour. Res., 32(2), 281–287.
Song, X., Li, Y., Jiang, J., and Ma, Y. (2008). “Progress and perspective of spatial variability study on unsaturated soil water movement parameters.” Adv. Earth Sci., 23(6), 613–618 (in Chinese).
Su, L., Zhang, Z., and Gu, L. (2004). “Fractal model for predicting the curves of unsaturated soil water retention along the mainstream of the Tarim River.” Arid Land Geog., 27(4), 530–534 (in Chinese).
Tyler, S. W., and Wheatcraft, S. W. (1990). “Fractal process in soil water retention.” Water Resour. Res., 26(5), 1047–1056.
Wang, D., Wang, Z., Li, D., and Cui, Q. (2007). “Fractal character and change of land use in Ejina Delta during the past 15 years.” Arid Land Geog., 30(5), 742–746 (in Chinese).
Zhao, A., Huang, M., and Shi, Z. (2008). “Evaluation of two indirect methods to estimate soil water characteristic curve of loess soil.” Trans. Chin. Soc. Agric. Eng., 24(9), 11–15 (in Chinese).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 7, 2012
Accepted: Jan 23, 2013
Published online: Jan 25, 2013
Discussion open until: Jun 25, 2013
Published in print: Feb 1, 2014
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.