The relative hydraulic conductivity model of soil “Guelph Loam”

¹ Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia
² St. Petersburg State Agrarian University, St. Petersburg-Pushkin, Russia
³ Agrophysical Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
⁴ Research Institute of Agriculture of Crimea, Simferopol, Russia
⁵ AdGuard Software Limited, Nicosia, Cyprus

^* Corresponding author: vitaly_terleev@mail.ru

Abstract

The relevance of the study is closely related to the urgent demands of society for the development of technologies that allow saving water resources, as well as agrochemicals when cultivating agricultural crops on irrigated lands. The goal outlined by the authors is to fill in the missing ideas about the physical nature of the interactions of the solid and liquid phases of the soil for the development of hydraulic functions, such as its moisture conductivity. The subject of the study is the most important patterns that control the water-physical properties of the soil. The research method is mathematical modelling. The work uses the proposed original function of soil moisture conductivity, which has parameters that allow interpretation. The correlation estimates of the modelling results and experimental data from the literature are given. Two options for setting the exponential parameter of the moisture conductivity function are discussed, including an option that allows eliminating the possible undesirable methodological effect of crossing the scanning and main branches of hysteresis of the water physical properties of the soil. The method has potential for effective application in precision irrigated agriculture.