Magazine article from our research archive:

Identification of functional horizons to predict physical properties for soils from alluvium in Canterbury, New Zealand.

Lack of soil physical data, particularly soil water release data and hydraulic conductivity data, is recognised as one of the greatest limitations to the widespread application of simulation models, needed to address environmental issues. Because of the expense of generating new soil physical data pedotransfer functions may be used to predict soil physical data from existing information, notably soil morphology. Pedological horizon descriptions can then be used to estimate soil physical properties for many points in the landscape.

The soils used in this study were derived from a systematic sampling of soil profiles for soil physical characteristics for 8 soils series within 2 drainage ...

<20 mm, 20-49 mm,>
<0.15 of base 
of A 
 
 Soils of the glacial surface 
 
Lismore  Well drained><0.002 mm diameter 
   (%) 
Bulk density BD  Dry mass per unit volume 
   (Mg/[m.sup.3]) 
Field capacity   FC  Water content at -10 kPa (%) 
Wilting pointWP  Water content at -1500 kPa (%) 
MacroporosityMP  Soil volume drained from 0 to 
   -5 kPa (%) 
Total available waterTAW Water drained hetween -10 and 
   -1500 kPa (%) 
Readily availableRAW Water drained between -10 and 
  water-100 kPa (%) 
Saturated hydraulic  [K.sub.S]   Hydraulic conductivity under 
  conductivity 10 min head (mm/h) 
Unsaturated hydraulic[K.sub.-40] Hydraulic conductivity under 
  conductivity -40 mm tension (mm/h) 
 
   Transformation 
 
Soil property  TopsoilSubsoil 
 
Clay Logarithm  Logarithm 
Bulk density 
Field capacity 
Wilting pointLogarithm 
MacroporositySquare rootSquare root 
Total available waterSquare root 
Readily available   Logarithm 
  water 
Saturated hydraulic  Logarithm  Logarithm 
  conductivity 
Unsaturated hydraulicSquare rootLogarithm 
  conductivity 
 
Table 3. Comparison of soil properties for topsoil functional horizons 
 
CY, clay; BD, bulk density; FC, field capacity; WP, wilting point; MP, 
macroporosity; TAW, total available water; RAW, readily available 
water; [K.sub.S], saturated hydraulic conductivity; [K.sub.-40] 
near-saturated hydraulic conductivity; wk, weak; sl, slightly; fi, 
firm. Horizons with><15   sbk & gr  wk 
2   2015-25  sbk & bk  wk-fi 
3   1225-40  sbk & bk  sfi-fi 
4   14><40  20-30 [slightly firm]><40><20 [weak] 
2  35   all  20-30 [slightly firm] 
3  16   all><40  firm 
4  46>

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