Soil Conference
There is a relationship between the texture of the soil and hydraulic conductivity. That relationship revolves around matric potential. At saturated conditions, hydraulic conductivity is much higher than potentials that are in unsaturated conditions. When there is a high moisture content, the hydraulic conductivity is higher in the sand than in the clay. At low moisture contents hydraulic conductivity is higher in the clay rather than sand. This phenomena occurs because sand has many more macropores and this allows moisture to move readily through the soil. That is why the graph shows the sandy loam soil’s curve dropping faster than the clay. Saturated flow takes place near zero ksat. This can be seen on the graph just before the sandy loam’s line starts to curve downward. In unsaturated conditions, the sandy loam ksat decreases. For the clay soil, the ksat is high in unsaturated conditions. This most likely has to do with the many more small pores that clay has versus sandy loams with macropores.
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