Dataset of Soil hydraulic properties of Valle Telesina (Italy)

The dataset contain a .xls file with the hydraulic properties georeferenced of 47 soil profiles of the "Valle Telesina (Italy) site, according to the parametrization of the van Genuthen-Mualem model (van Genuchten, 1980). Moreover a zipped folder with the shape files for the same area is provided.

Following there is the description of the methods applied for the soil hydraulic characterization:

Undisturbed soil samples were collected from the horizons using cylindrical steel samplers (8.5 cm diameter and 12.0 cm high). In the laboratory, the samples were saturated by slowly wetting from the bottom in order to remove all the air entrapped in the soil. The maximum water content,θ₀, was gravimetrically determined and the saturated hydraulic conductivity, ks, was measured by a falling-head permeameter. Then, the Wind method was applied to simultaneously determine the water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions by subjecting the soil samples to an evaporation process. After sealing the bottom surface to prevent drainage, during the evaporation process - at appropriate pre-set time intervals - the weight of the whole sample and the pressure head at three different depths were measured. An iterative procedure was applied for estimating the water retention curve from these measurements. Then, the instantaneous profile method was applied to determine the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. θr, θs, α and n parameters were derived by fitting the soil water retention data; under the restriction m=l−l/n, τ and k₀ parameters were derived by fitting the hydraulic conductivity data. Details of the tests and overall calculation procedures are described in Basile et al. (2012). The parameters obtained in the laboratory were then scaled to better reproduce the field behaviour by following the procedure suggested by Basile et al. (2003; 2006). Finally, for the few soils having considerable stone content, a correction of θs and k₀, to take into account the stoniness, was applied (Coppola et al., 2013).

References:

Van Genuchten, M. T. (1980). A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 44(5), 892–898.

Basile, A., Buttafuoco, G., Mele, G., & Tedeschi, A. (2012). Complementary techniques to assess physical properties of a fine soil irrigated with saline water. Environmental Earth Sciences,66(7), 1797–1807.

Basile, A., Ciollaro, G., & Coppola, A.(2003). Hysteresis in soil water characteristics as a key to interpreting comparisons of laboratory and field measuredhydraulic properties.Water Resources Research, 39(12).

Basile, A., Coppola, A., De Mascellis, R., & Randazzo, L. (2006). Scaling approach to deduce field unsaturated hydraulic properties and behavior from laboratory measurements on small cores. Vadose Zone Journal,5(3), 1005–1016.

Coppola, A., Dragonetti, G., Comegna, A., Lamaddalena, N., Caushi, B., Haikal, M., & Basile, A. (2013). Measuring and modeling water content in stony soils. Soil and Tillage Research,128, 9–22.