Optimal choice of soil hydraulic parameters for simulating the unsaturated flow: A case study on the Island of Miyakojima, Japan

Abstract

We examined the influence of input soil hydraulic parameters on HYDRUS-1D simulations of evapotranspiration and volumetric water contents (VWCs) in the unsaturated zone of a sugarcane field on the island of Miyakojima, Japan. We first optimized the parameters for root water uptake and examined the influence of soil hydraulic parameters (water retention curve and hydraulic conductivity) on simulations of evapotranspiration. We then compared VWCs simulated using measured soil hydraulic parameters with those using pedotransfer estimates obtained with the ROSETTA software package. Our results confirm that it is important to always use soil hydraulic parameters based on measured data, if available, when simulating evapotranspiration and unsaturated water flow processes, rather than pedotransfer functions.