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ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Modeling the Relationship between Soil Bulk Density and the Hydraulic Conductivity Function

Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, A.R.O., the Volcani Center, P.O.B. 6, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel
^* Corresponding author (vwshmuel{at}agri.gov.il)

Received 10 July 2005.

A model is presented that could quantify and predict the effect of an increase in soil bulk density on the hydraulic conductivity function (HCF). Two approaches are formulated to predict the saturated hydraulic conductivity of compacted soils. The first approach is a general expression based on the Kozeny equation that requires only information on the bulk density. The second approach exploits information contained in the water retention curve (WRC). This approach, which relies on Assouline's model for soil HCFs, also provides a basis for a proposed expression to predict the unsaturated HCF of compacted soils. It is shown that a relationship between , the power parameter in the expression for the HCF, and , the coefficient of variation of the WRC, is applicable to a large number of both compacted and uncompacted soils. The model was verified against measured HCFs for soils at different bulk density values. Both the saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivities were well reproduced by the suggested expressions.

Abbreviations: HCF, hydraulic conductivity function • PSD, pore-size distribution • RHC, relative hydraulic conductivity • WRC, water retention curve

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