2 research outputs found
New generation of hydraulic pedotransfer functions for Europe
A range of continental-scale soil datasets exists in Europe with different spatial representation and based on
different principles. We developed comprehensive pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for applications principally
on spatial datasets with continental coverage. The PTF development included the prediction of soil water
retention at various matric potentials and prediction of parameters to characterize soil moisture retention and
the hydraulic conductivity curve (MRC and HCC) of European soils. We developed PTFs with a hierarchical
approach, determined by the input requirements. The PTFs were derived by using three statistical methods: (i)
linear regression where there were quantitative input variables, (ii) a regression tree for qualitative, quantitative
and mixed types of information and (iii) mean statistics of developer-defined soil groups (class PTF) when
only qualitative input parameters were available. Data of the recently established European Hydropedological
Data Inventory (EU-HYDI), which holds the most comprehensive geographical and thematic coverage of
hydro-pedological data in Europe, were used to train and test the PTFs. The applied modelling techniques and the
EU-HYDI allowed the development of hydraulic PTFs that are more reliable and applicable for a greater variety
of input parameters than those previously available for Europe. Therefore the new set of PTFs offers tailored
advanced tools for a wide range of applications in the continent