New Calculation Procedure and Simple Set-Up for the Evaporation Method toDetermine Soil Hydraulic Functions

摘要

Wind's evaporation method has been used over 30 years by the Institute for Landand Water Management Research (ICW) and the Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land, Soil and Water Research (SC-DLO). The merit of this method is the simultaneous determination of both the water retention characteristic and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity on one soil sample. During the years several improvements and changes have been made. Also the set-up has been improved. The latest development is an automated, computer-controlled set-up for measurements on 10 samples. The goal of this report is to document in detail how the evaporation method is used today. Another goal is to describe a relative cheap and very simple set-up for this method. This type of battery powered set-up can be used in remote sites or sites with a poor infrastructure. (Copyright (c) 1994 DLO Winand Staring Centre for Integrated Land, Soil and Water Research (SC-DLO).)