Estimating spatial patterns in water content, matric suction, and hydraulic conductivity

A relatively rapid method for surveying and estimating field-scale variability of water content, hydraulic conductivity, and matric suction using geostatistics is described. The spatial variability in each property was described using spherical semivariograms. Kriging was used to estimate spatial patterns in clay and sand content. Spherical cross-semivarigrams of surface temperature and water content were used along with cokriging techniques to estimate water content at 5-m spacings. The geostatistical estimates of spatial patterns in water content, clay content, and sand content were used for texture-based estimates of matric suction and hydraulic conductivity at 5-m spacings along both transects. A comparison of texture-based and laboratory-based estimates of matric suction showed that although the two estimators gave similar spatial patterns and means, they had significantly different standard deviations.