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SPECIAL SECTION: ZNS'03 VADOSE ZONE RESEARCH

Soil Water-Holding Capacity Assessment in Terms of the Average Annual Water Balance in Southern Spain

^a Organic Farming and Natural Resources, CIFA Las Torres-Tomejil, IFAPA, Ctra. Sevilla-Cazalla, km 12,2, 41200 Alcalá del Río, Sevilla, Spain
^b Dep. of Agronomy, Univ. of Córdoba, P.O. Box 3048, 14080 Córdoba, Spain
^c Dep. of Soil Management and Soil Care, Ghent Univ., Coupure 653, B-9000, Gent, Belgium
^* Corresponding author (karl.vanderlinden.ext{at}juntadeandalucia.es)

Received 23 June 2004.

Knowledge of the soil water-holding capacity, w₀, is essential to the evaluation of regional soil water balance. In this paper, we produced a map of w₀ for the region of Andalusia, southern Spain, using pedotransfer functions (PTFs) and geostatistics. The information available consisted of analytical and morphological data from 521 soil profiles in the region, and the 1:400000 soil map of Andalusia. The w₀ values were calculated using 10 published PTFs. The soil map only slightly improved the spatial interpolation of the PTF-calculated w₀'s. The PTF estimates for w₀ ranged from near 0 to 235 mm, with an average value of 110 mm and a SD of 48 mm. Since no independent field observations were available, the w₀ estimates were evaluated in terms of the average annual total runoff and actual evapotranspiration. Both components were calculated at 160 meteorological observatories using a simple bucket water balance model, driven by daily meteorological data. The spatial variability of w₀ had little effect on the calculated average annual water balance of the region. Increasing w₀ to 150 to 200 mm produced a better fit of the water balance predicted with Budyko's empirical functions. The difference could be partly explained by seasonality-related characteristics of the climate in the region. Comparison of the results with other studies suggests that the estimated w₀ values should be increased by 45%. These differences can be attributed entirely to an inconsistent definition of field capacity (FC).

Abbreviations: CRV, complement of the relative variance • FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations • FC, field capacity • ME, mean error • OM, organic matter • PTF, pedotransfer function • RMSE, root mean square error • SKlm, simple kriging with local varying means • w₀, soil water-holding capacity • WP, wilting point