Contribution to the determination of the hydraulic conductivity in the saturation of soil

This paper focused on the development of a model that helps the estimation of hydraulic conductivity at saturation from the data on the constituents of the soil. A statistical analysis of Canadian soil samples allowed a better understanding of the phenomena involved and helped in the development of a methodological approach that determines the main pedotransfer function for multi-variables with regressions of soil hydraulic conductivity at saturation. The analysis showed the necessity of distinguishing separately the texture samples per class, horizon, and land use. In addition to the texture parameter, it was demonstrated that it is necessary to express Ks depending on factors other than the texture. A comparative study of the proposed regression models and existing ones has identified the limits and conditions for use of each of them, all based on the Nash coefficient.