Evaluation of Beerkan Infiltration Method in Estimation of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity of Soil

Abstract

Determination of the field-saturated hydraulic conductivity can result in very high variability. So, analysis and simulation of hydrological processes such as runoff from rain requires a lot of data of field-saturated hydraulic conductivity even on a small scale. To identify this variability as well as its source, eight widely used measurement methods were compared:(Double-ring, Single-ring, Guelph permeameter, Tension infiltrometer, BESTslope, BESTintercept, Wu1 and Wu2) to evaluate the BEST method. In the single-ring method was used a metal cylinder with a radius of 10 cm. It was found that the maximum and minimum estimates of hydraulic conductivity are in Wu1 method (0.104 cm/min) and tension infiltrometer (0.0063 cm/min), respectively. The methods of double-ring, single-ring and Tension infiltrometer were not statistically significant differences at 5%. BEST methods were not statistically significant differences but BESTintercept method 28% more than BESTslope method. According to the experiment data, Kfs was estimated using the BESTintercept method is closer to reality than BESTslope method. In generally, the BEST methods can be a good alternative to estimate field-saturated hydraulic conductivity and prevent from a lot of field measurements.

Keywords

• single ring
• double ring
• beerkan
• field-saturated hydraulic conductivity
• infiltration