HYPRESCZ - database of soil hydrophysical properties in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The database of soil hydrophysical properties in the Czech Republic called HYPRESCZ was created. It is based on the European database HYPRES, HYdraulic PRoperties of European Soils, and follows its structure with few modifications. It collects the available data from the Czech Republic from which pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for the estimation of soil hydrophysical properties from easily available soil properties can be derived and 2101 database entries were collected. The entries have different quality of data, out of the total number of entries 707 entries were applicable to PTFs derivation for the estimation of soil water retention curves (SWRCs). After elimination of replicates, finally 159 unique soil horizons (arable land only) were used for PTFs derivation. The parametric continuous pedotransfer functions for estimation of SWRCs in the Czech Republic were derived within this study and are based on Wösten's model. The retention curves were estimated using both these newly derived PTFs and Wösten's original model, which was derived for European soils in general. The uncertainty of estimation was evaluated, employing the root mean squared error (RMSE) and the coefficient of determination (R2) comparing the PTF-estimated and the directly fitted retention curves. The reliability of the newly derived PTFs for Czech soils was higher (RMSE = 0.059 cm3/cm3 and R2 = 71%) compared to Wösten's general PTFs (RMSE = 0.11 cm3/cm3 and R2 = 36%).

Keywords

• hypres
• pedotransfer functions
• soil water retention curve