Uncertainty in predicting soil hydraulic properties at the hillslope scale with indirect methods
Uncertainty in predicting soil hydraulic properties at the hillslope scale with indirect methods
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DOI:
10.1016/j.jhydrol.2006.10.024
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发表时间:
2007-02-28
影响因子:
6.4
通讯作者:
Romano, N.
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Chirico, G. B.;Medina, H.;Romano, N.
Several hydrological applications require the characterisation of the soil hydraulic properties at large spatial scales. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) are being developed as simplified methods to estimate soil hydraulic properties as an alternative to direct measurements, which are unfeasible for most practical circumstances. The objective of this study is to quantify the uncertainty in PTFs spatial predictions at the hiltstope scale as related to the sampling density, due to: (i) the error in estimated soil physico-chemical properties and (ii) PTF model error. The analysis is carried out on a 2-km-long experimental hillstope in South Italy. The method adopted is based on a stochastic generation of patterns of soil variables using sequential Gaussian simulation, conditioned to the observed sample data. The following PTFs are applied: Vereecken's PTF (Vereecken, H., Diets, J., van Orshoven J., Feyen, J., Bouma, J., 1992. Functional evaluation of pedotransfer functions for the estimation of soil hydraulic properties. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 56, 13711378] and HYPRES PTF [Wosten, J.H.M., Lilly, A., Nemes, A., Le Bas, C., 1999. Development and use of a database of hydraulic properties of European soils. Geoderma 90, 169-185]. The two PTFs estimate reliably the soil water retention characteristic even for a relatively coarse sampling resolution, with prediction uncertainties comparable to the uncertainties in direct laboratory or field measurements. The uncertainty of soil water retention prediction due to the model error is as much as or more significant than the uncertainty associated with the estimated input, even for a relatively coarse sampling resolution. Prediction uncertainties are much more important when PTF are applied to estimate the saturated hydraulic conductivity. In this case model error dominates the overall prediction uncertainties, making negligible the effect of the input error. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.