A new approach for determining effective soil hydraulic functions

We investigated the possibility of inferring effective hydraulic properties of soil from the structure of the pore space. The aim was to identify structural properties, which are essential for water flow, so that physical experiments may be replaced by direct morphological measurements. The pore structure was investigated in three dimensions by serial sections through impregnated samples. The complex geometry of pore space was quantified in terms of two characteristics: pore-size distribution and pore connectivity. Only pores larger than 0.04 mm were considered. The results were used as input parameters for a pore-scale network model. The main desorption branch of the soil-water characteristic and the corresponding hydraulic conductivity function of the network model were calculated by numerical simulation. The simulation results, which are exclusively based on morphological investigations, were compared with independently measured results from a multi-step outflow experiment. This approach was demonstrated for two centrasting soil materials: the A and B horizons of a silty agricultural soil. The simulations were close to the experimental data, except for the absolute values of the hydraulic conductivity. The pore-size distribution and pore connectivity govern the shape of hydraulic functions and the applied morphometric methods are suitable for predicting essential characteristics of hydraulic soil properties.