Evaluation of Soil-Water Characteristic Curves for Different Textural Soils Using Fractal Analysis

Abstract

The soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) is an essential tool to determine hydraulic and mechanical properties of unsaturated soils. As an inherent influencing factor, soil texture controls the characteristics of SWCCs. Fractal theory can quantitatively describe the physical characteristics of soil. This study used particle size distribution data and water content data contained in the UNSODA2.0 database to explore the fractal characteristics of 12 soil types with different textures under different matrix suctions. The SWCC fractal model was adopted to characterize the hydraulic properties of soil with various soil textures. The findings revealed that the mass fractal dimensions of particles from these 12 different soil types significantly differed and were closely related to the clay content. Fractal dimension increased with increasing clay content. The fractal dimension established a good relationship between soil structure and hydraulic properties. Fractal analysis can be used to determine the connection between physical properties and soil hydraulic parameters. The estimated results of the SWCC fractal model indicated that it had a good performance regarding the description of SWCCs for the 12 soil textures. The soil structure could be described through fractal dimensions, which can effectively indicate soil hydraulic characteristics. The estimated fractal dimension of this model could be obtained by particle size distribution. Furthermore, using the SWCC fractal model, we found that the SWCC of coarse textured soil changed sharply in the low suction stage and its residual water content was small, and the SWCC of fine textured soil changed gently with a large residual water content. The water retention capacity followed the order clay > silty clay > sandy clay > clay loam > silty clay loam > sandy clay loam > loam > silt loam > sandy loam > silt > loamy sand > sand.