LAUSR

Several studies aimed at linking hydraulic conductivity at saturation (Kw,s) to air permeability (Ka(θw)) of soil at given water content (θw) since it can be measured more rapidly and nondestructively than Kw,s especially regarding some new in situ technologies for Ka(θw) measurement. Following this, the current research aimed to develop a semi-theoretical relation between Kw,s and Ka(θw) using measured data in 27 soil samples. The Ka(θw) was measured at 12 different θw contents between 1.5 to 1,500 kPa suctions. Applying these measured data, we proposed a semi-theoretical function to predict Kw,s using Ka(θw) as input variable. The results showed that the proposed function was able to predict Kw,s using Ka(θw) at any individual θw content with really high accuracy consisting of R2 = 0.986 and evaluating error (ER) of the 2% between measured and predicted Kw,s. However, the outcomes revealed that Ka(θw) measurement at lower θw contents resulted in greater accuracy for proposed model. The pertinent section of the article applied multivariate linear regression (MLR) to develop pedo-transfer functions (PTFs) to estimate the parameters of the proposed model. The results revealed that the developed PTFs had relatively greater accuracy and reliability showing average determination coefficient (R2) of 0.807 and 0.729 for training and test datasets, respectively. However, more detailed investigation with wide range of soil parameters are needed for more general PTFs development.