Effect of Cultivation on Soil Available Water Using Parametric Pedotransfer Functions

Soil tillage changes chemical and physical properties which can change the soil available water capacity. For understanding the effect of soil disturbance in cultivated soil on available water, parameter pedotransfer functions of these soils created and their results were compared with measured available water by moisture release curves. For this purpose 54 soil samples were taken from cultivated and non cultivated soils of Abyek-Qazvin area northwesthern Iran. Selected properties of these soils such as particle size distribution, bulk density, organic carbon, calcium carbonate, cation exchange capacity and pH were determined. Soil moisture curve of samples were obtained by pressure plates. Parameter pedotransfer functions were created by Mualem-van Genucten model for non cultivated soil and their available water were predicted. The predicted available water was compared with measured available water. The results illustrated that the predicted results had higher correlation coefficient for moisture of permanent wilting point compared to of field capacity moisture, As the correlation coefficient was inccreased from 0.67 to 0.83 and also the root mean square error (RMSE) reduced from 2.59 to 1.06. So the predicted available water was overestimated.