International Journal of Scientific Research in Knowledge, 2(5), pp. 224-232, 2014 Available online at http://www.ijsrpub.

com/ijsrk ISSN: 2322-4541; 2014 IJSRPUB http://dx.doi.org/10.12983/ijsrk-2014-p0224-0232

Full Length Research Paper Scaling Approaches to Evaluating Spatial Variability of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity and Cumulative Infiltration of an Acrisol
Henry Oppong Tuffour1, 2*, Mensah Bonsu1, Abdul Aziz Khalid1, Thomas Adjei-Gyapong1
1

School of Agriculture and Bio-Resources Engineering, Anglican University College of Technology, Nkoranza Campus, Nkoranza, Ghana 2 Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana * Corresponding Author: hoppongtuffour@gmail.com; (+233) 208 542 308
Received 01 February 2014; Accepted 12 April 2014

Abstract. Spatial variability of soil properties has been frequently assessed using classical statistics and geostatistics. However, the scaling theory approach has also proven to be an effective method to describe the variation of soil hydraulic properties. The objective of this study was to evaluate the structure of spatial variability in soil hydraulic and hydrologic processes using scaling techniques in the Plantations Section of the Department of Crops and Soil Sciences, KNUST, Kumasi. Field infiltration studies were conducted using the single ring infiltrometer. Saturated hydraulic conductivity ( Ks) was determined in the laboratory by the falling head permeameter. The similar media theory approach was employed in the scaling of Ks, while cumulative infiltration amount (I) was scaled using the linear variability theory. Scaling factors and parameters of the reference curves were computed directly from the parameters of individual soil hydraulic and hydrologic parameters and reference curves were obtained to represent Ks and I in the field. Scaling factors ranged from 0.23 to 2.66 with a mean of 1.00 for Ks, I and cumulative time. The composite Ks and I for the study area calculated by using different, but related, scaling factors was successful, though the distribution and range of the parameters were highly variable. Keywords: Spatial variability, Scaling, Similar media, Linear variability, Reference curves, Saturated hydraulic conductivity, Cumulative infiltration amount

1. INTRODUCTION Studies in soil water movement are increasingly concerned with the spatial variation of soil physical properties. In many studies, spatial variation of the soil hydraulic properties is expressed by scaling factors. In conventional scaling, reference parameter curves and scaling factors are determined from minimization of residuals. Thus, the single objective of scaling, therefore, is to coalesce a set of functional relationships into a single curve using scaling factors that describe the set as a whole. Most studies have shown that scaling factors are lognormally distributed (Hopmans and Overmars, 1987; Clausnitzer et al., 1992; Hopmans and Kosugi, 1998). The definition of scaling factors comes from the work of Miller and Miller (1956). They introduced the similar media concept (Miller similitude) which is based upon assumptions concerning the microscopic geometric structure of porous media. Similar media differ only in the scale of their internal microscopic geometries and have therefore equal porosities. In principle, the similar media concept allows results,

either experimental or computed, of soil water behaviour in one soil to be used to describe the behaviour in another by employing reduced variables defined in terms of appropriate microscopic characteristic lengths. The purpose of scaling is to simplify the description of statistical variation of soil hydraulic properties. By this simplification, the pattern of spatial variability is described by a set of scale factors relating the soil hydraulic properties at each location to a representative mean. 1.1. Scaling Theory According to Miller and Miller (1956), the fundamental concept underlying the system is that two soils or porous media M and Mo are similar when scale factors exist which will transform the behaviour of one soil or porous medium to that of the other, i.e., the variables that describe the physical phenomena that occur within them, differ by a linear factor , called microscopic characteristic length, which relates their physical characteristics (Reichardt et al., 2003).

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Similar media then results from the use of this length scale as a factor to render transport coefficients and potentials for water in porous media in a scaled form (Sposito and Jury, 1990). The best way to visualize this concept is to consider Mo as an amplified (or reduced) photograph of M by a factor . For these media, the particle diameter of one is related to the other by: Do = D. The surface of this particle by: So= 2S, and its volume by Vo = 3V. Because the particle and void geometry are magnified without reorientation or shape change, the characteristic length scale can characterize the relative magnification of a particular region relative to the reference region. Under these conditions, if the flow of water through M is known, it would be possible to estimate the flow through Mo, based only on (Reichardt et al., 2003). For such a medium, the hydraulic and retention properties of any region i can be calculated from those of the reference region (where = 1) (Jury et al., 1984). Based on the similar media concept, the microscopic structures of soils are assumed to be identical (Warrick et al., 1977; Kutilek and Nielsen, 1994), and the soils differ only by their microscopic length scale, which is characterized by a scaling factor. The scaling factor , is defined as the ratio of a microscopic characteristic length, , of soil sample to the characteristic length, , of a reference soil:

measurements (80 in this study) of 1977; Bonsu and Laryea, 1989) as:

(Warrick et al.,

(3) Since the fractal diagram is a graphical method used to provide visual information about the distribution of a property (Hald, 1952) and one of the easiest methods to determine whether or not a set of observations is normally distributed, fractal diagrams of and values were consequently constructed. Where, represented the lognormal transformation of . 1.3. Scaling Cumulative Infiltration amount (I) The application of the linear variability concept has its roots in the similar media concept (Miller and Miller, 1956) which is eminent in soil hydraulics. The linear variability theory, as a consequence, corresponds to the similar media theory for homogeneous soils, but uses three instead of one scaling factor and applies to non-homogeneous soil profiles as well. According to Vogel et al. (1991) a soil is described as linearly nonhomogeneous if its hydraulic properties obey the following rules: (*) The space and time variability of its hydraulic properties can be expressed in terms of a linear transformation:

(1) 1.2. Scaling Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) Considering the scaling factors in the similar media concept (Miller and Miller, 1956), the spatial variability of has been described in Warrick et al. (1977), Simmons et al. (1979) and Bonsu and Laryea (1989). As a result of the scaling theory, the hydraulic conductivity functions at given water contents at given locations were related to a scaled mean saturated hydraulic conductivity such that for the hydraulic conductivity: (2) Where, is the saturated hydraulic conductivity of a certain profile depth at location i, is the scaled mean saturated hydraulic conductivity for the given depths and is the scaling factor for location i. By setting the mean of values to 1, Equation was redefined to obtain from a sample size of

Where,

Where, = an index of time and allows for temporal changes in the hydraulic functions; is a position vector with z positive upward; and soil hydraulic characteristics at point , i.e., the hydraulic conductivity-pressure head and soil moisture-pressure head relations; and space and time invariant reference soil hydraulic characteristics; , and scaling factors associated with soil hydraulic conductivity, moisture content and pressure head, respectively; Residual moisture content. (*) The overall spot-to-spot variability was decomposed into two independent components: a

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local (within profile) and a global (between profiles) component:

The soil hydraulic properties of this reference profile can then be fully characterised by the pair of functions, and obtained by combining equations , and .

Where, Index which describes global variability (profile identifier); Index which accounts for local variability and describes position within the local (profile) coordinate; and global and local components of the respective scaling factors . Soil profile was defined in terms of one-, two- and three-dimensional soil region and the difference between them is determined by the global component of variability. With a set of soil profiles with hydraulic characteristics that vary according to the outlined linear variability concept, it was possible to define a reference soil profile as a profile for which

Where,

Water movement in any soil profile as well as in the reference profile can be described by Richards equation.

Assuming that certain initial and boundary conditions are satisfied and that the solution for the reference profile is available, the dynamic variables for the other profiles can be determined from:

Where,

Since these relationships can be used to compute pressure head, Darcian flux, and moisture content at any point of any soil profile at time from the distribution of respective reference variables at time , they can also be regarded as a linear model to describe variability of the dynamic characteristics of a soil water system. The described concept, as a consequence, corresponds to the similar media theory for homogeneous soils (Miller and Miller, 1956), but uses three instead of one scaling factor and applies to non-homogeneous soil profiles as well. In order to avoid dependency between soil profile geometry (depth of soil profile, thickness of soil layers etc.) and soil hydraulic properties through the presence of in the position vector transformation in equation , the following additional constraint is necessary:

As a result, the variability of the scaling factor is restricted to its local component only and . The two parameters and denote a relative measure of cross-sectional available for water flow and permeability, respectively, and together contribute greatly to soil water flow. Based on the described concept, the mutual relationship between infiltration scaling factors was determined from:

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Given a set of field-determined infiltration curves that characterize the infiltration process for a set of soil profiles, the parameters of the reference infiltration curve I* (t*) and the respective sets of scaling factors , , and can be determined from each measured infiltration curve approximated by Philips (1957) equation:

normalized by dividing the scaling factors and by their respective mean values, and the scaling factor was recalculated from equation . Consequently, scaling factors and have arithmetic means of 1. The normalization of the scaling factors, thus, required new values for and . The expressions in and were used to find the parameters for the new reference curve: ;

Where, = cumulative infiltration (m), = parameter known as transmissivity factor (m/s), = sorptivity (m/s), and = elapsed time since the start of infiltration (s). The infiltration scaling factors , and were then derived from:

Where, and are the arithmetic means of the various scaling factors before the normalization process. The parameters for the reference cumulative infiltration amount were then determined as follows: The coordinates and of each measured data point was divided by the respective scaling factors. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS 2.1. Description of Experimental Area The study was conducted at the Plantations Research station of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences of the Faculty of Agriculture, KNUST, Kumasi. A total field of 75 m x 40 m was gridded with a 10 m x 5 m interval in the north-south and east-west directions. The soil belongs to the Kumasi series described as Plinthi Ferric Acrisol (FAO/UNESCO, 1990) or Typic Plinthustult (Soil Survey Staff, 1998). The site chosen for the measurements was located in an uprooted oil palm (Elaies guineensis) field.

Where, and are the arithmetic means of the individual and values for each of the measured infiltration curves. is the scaling factor for cumulative infiltration amount (I), is the scaling factor for cumulative time (t) and is the scaling factor for infiltration rate. The scaling factors were

Table 1: Scaling parameters for Ks and I

Variable K* (m s-1) ln K* k I* (mm) t* (min) I t Minimum 0.23 -1.47 0.23 894.30 0.38 0.23 0.39 Maximum 2.18 0.78 2.18 3573.00 59.82 2.12 2.66 Mean 1.024 -1.013 1.00 1269.00 16.24 1.001 1.004 SD 0.58 0.56 0.52 28.17 17.54 0.52 0.46

K* = Scaled Ks, ln K* = Log transformed Ks, k = Scaling factor of Ks, I* = Scaled cumulative infiltration amount, t* = Scaled time, I = Scaling factor of cumulative infiltration amount, t = Scaling factor of cumulative time.

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Fig. 1: Map showing the outline of the experimental field at Plantations Research Station, KNUST

Results from the physic-chemical analyses of soil in the field showed a sand content of 78.31%, clay content of 14.50%, bulk density of 1.41 g/cm3, total porosity of 46.82%, volumetric moisture content of 11.33%, organic carbon of 1.19 and pH of 5.05. The effect of vegetation was not included in this study; therefore, Modified-No-tillage system was employed in the land preparation process, since the vegetation was overgrown and tall in order to maintain the soil in its natural and undisturbed state. 2.2. Data Collection The experimental field was delineated into eighty rectangular blocks, each 50 m2 in area and sampling locations were defined and maintained using a Global Positioning System (GPS) device at the nodes of the sampling grids. Soil core samples were collected from the 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm depths for the determination of saturated hydraulic conductivity. Field infiltration was conducted by working the cylindrical steel infiltrometer to a depth of 10 cm. The soil hydraulic and hydrologic properties were determined from collected soil cores and field infiltration measurements were carried out at all eighty grids, respectively. The measurements included laboratory saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) using the falling head permeameter method (Bonsu and Laryea, 1989) and field infiltration using the single ring infiltrometer (Klute, 1986). 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The assumptions on which the presented linear scaling theory was based resulted in similar soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and cumulative infiltration amount (I). To be exact, the heterogeneity of Ks and I

from spot-to-spot within the study area was approximated by the scaling factor for each spot. With regard to I, the linear variability model presented relationships between the variability of soil hydraulic properties and parameters that described the variability of the infiltration process (Vogel et al., 1991). Table 1.0 presents the statistical summary of scaling parameters of Ks and I. In respect of reports from random fields, a large range for the variance of the scaling factor has been reported in the literature (Zhu and Mohanty, 2006). Warrick et al. (1977) reported the variance of the scaling factor range from 0.23 to 3.29 for various soils. Scaling factors from this study show a similar trend as evidenced by the range of values reported. For instance, for cumulative infiltration amount, the scaling factor values ranged from 0.23 to 2.12 with a mean of 1.001 and a standard deviation of 0.52. Again, this finding is in direct connection with reports made by Sharma and Luxmoore (1979) and Sharma et al. (1980). From their studies, they reported a mean scaling factor derived from infiltration parameters for the R-5 watershed in Oklahoma to be 1.0 with a standard deviation of 0.6. The main idea of effective (scaled) parameters derived from this study was whether the behavior of the parameters in the soil can be bagged by one that assumes only one set of soil parameters, such that the heterogeneous system is replaced by a corresponding homogeneous system (Zhu and Mohanty, 2006). However, these parameters are site specific as there are no universal effective properties due to the highly nonlinear nature of soil hydraulic properties and various boundary conditions under different flow states (Zhu and Mohanty, 2002). The equivalent soil properties produced herein should therefore, closely produce the same water budget as the mean water

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budget corresponding to the soil hydraulic properties and the variation of microtopography of the study area (Zhu and Mohanty, 2006).

3.1. Cumulative infiltration amount With regard to the field-measured infiltration curves that characterize the infiltration process for the study area, the parameters for the reference infiltration curve I*(t*) are represented in Fig. 1b.

Cumulative infiltration amount (mm)

8000

4000

6000
I* (m m )

3000

4000

2000

2000

1000

0 0 1000 2000 3000 4000

0
20 40 60 80 0

Time (s)
Fig. 2a: Variation in Cumulative Infiltration amount curves

t* (min)
Fig. 2b: Scaling of cumulative infiltration amount curves

The level of success of the scaling method can be deduced from the comparison of the degree of scatter in Figures 2a and 2b. At first glance, it can be observed that the use of scaling factors have reduced the extent of scatter of the measured variables, allowing the production of a meaningful average curve, signifying the effectiveness of scaling (Fig. 2b). The higher scattering of data points in Fig. 2a as compared to Fig. 2b denotes the extent of variability of cumulative infiltration amount (I) in the field. This high variability in I could be a result of the variations in soil texture, structure (aggregate stability, bulk density, permeability, porosity and pore size distribution), surface characteristics and conditions (such as desiccation, sealing, crusting and/or compaction), layering sequence (soil profile characteristics), antecedent moisture content, depth of water table, entrapped air, salt content in water and soil, soil and water temperature at the point of sampling (Jury et al., 1991). The superposition of all transformed data points yielded a single reference infiltration curve. If the selected analytical expressions are fitted through the transformed data sets, then the resulting fitting parameters would be referred to as the reference cumulative infiltration amount. This result was expected since the use of scaling factors is known to

decompose the overall spot-to-spot variability of measured variables into unison. This is because the scaling factors have caused a linear transformation on each of the involved variables. This variability is inferred as an approximation of the linear component of real soil variability. Accordingly, the variability of cumulative infiltration amount is always linear; hence the unexplained variability after the transformation could be due to the nonlinear component of the total variability. Therefore, the assumption is that the linear component is dominating the nonlinear component (Vogel et al., 1991). 3.2. Saturated hydraulic conductivity Even though the samples were taken from different locations within the study area, scaling was successful with regard to representing the variability of soil hydraulic properties by a set of scale factor values (Fig. 3). Fractal diagrams were used to compare values obtained from sampling with scaling factors. These were obtained from plots of cumulative probability function (pct) defined as versus (Hopmans, 1987), where is the mean scaling factor, is the standard deviation of and is the natural logarithmic transformation of .

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Fig. 3: Fractal diagrams of unscaled and scaled Ks

The scaled mean saturated hydraulic conductivity functions for both layers can be viewed as being the representative means of the scaled hydraulic data. From the estimated distribution of scale factor values, a new set of scale factors may be generated to represent the soil hydraulic properties of the area (Hopmans, 1987). The fact that the plots of are closer to assuming straight line indicates that a lognormal distribution fits the results better than a normal distribution. This outcome is a confirmation of the results from several other studies (e.g., Warrick et al., 1977; Vachaud et al., 1985; Hopmans and Overmars, 1987; Clausnitzer et al., 1992; Kosugi and Hopmans, 1998) which have shown that scaling factors are approximately lognormally distributed. In addition, the study has established that saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) obeys a lognormal distribution as reported elsewhere (Kutilek and Nielsen, 1994; Bierkens, 1996; Kosugi and Hopmans, 1998). This result also suggests a lognormal distribution of scaling factors, since the hydraulic conductivity is expected to be proportional to the square of the scaling factor (Jury et al., 1987). 4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Relationships similar to those given for the infiltration process can be created for other water transport processes, thus a scaling procedure can be applied to the respective dynamic characteristics of these processes. As a consequence, the idea of similar soil properties could be used to provide a basis for soil classification with each soil class categorized by its reference hydraulic characteristics. The dynamic feature of linear variability theory can be used in computer simulations for analysing soil-water flow. Furthermore, the use of scaling factors may result in considerable reserves of experimental and computational effort and abridge the investigation

required to assess the outcomes of the space and time variability of soil properties. The linear variability model, thus serves as a tool to simplify the problem of spatial and temporal variations encountered in the field. This can be achieved through the formulation and interpretation of initial and boundary conditions imposed on a given system of soil profiles. This study proposes an interpretation of these empirically derived results. Specifically, a lognormal scaling factor distribution was derived by assuming that the soil pore radius of the study area was lognormally distributed and that individual soil samples were obtained from random sampling of effective pore volume from the study area. However, the effective parameters can be very difficult to define; therefore they should be dependent on the flow event of interest. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the field and laboratory facilities provided by Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, KNUST, Ghana, to carry out this work. The intellectual support provided by the scholars whose articles are cited and included in the references of this manuscript is also fully acknowledged. The authors are also grateful authors / editors / publishers of all those articles, journals and books from where the literature for this article has been received and discussed. REFERENCES Bierkins MFP (1996). Modelling hydraulic conductivity of a complex confining layer at various spatial scales. Water Resources Research, 32: 2369-2382.

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Bonsu M, Laryea KB (1989). Scaling the saturated hydraulic conductivity of an Alfisol. Journal of Soil Science. 40: 731-742. Clausnitzer V, Hopmans JW, Nielsen, DR (1992). Simultaneous scaling of soil water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves. Water Resources Research, 28: 19-31. Hald A (1952). Statistical theory with engineering applications. John Wiley and sons, New York. Hopmans JW (1987). A comparison of various methods to scale soil hydraulic properties. Journal of Hydrology, 93. Hopmans JW, Overmars B (1987). Presentation and application of an analytical model to describe soil hydraulic properties. Journal Hydrology (Amsterdam), 87: 135-143. Jury WA (1984). Field scale water and solute transport through unsaturated soils. In: Soil Salinity under Irrigation. Shainberg I, Shalhevet J (Eds.); Springer Verlag, New York. 115-125. Jury WA, Gardner WR, Gardner WH (1991). Soil Physics, 5th Ed. Wiley, New York. 268-293. Jury WA, Russo D, Sposito G (1987). The spatial variability of water and solute transport properties in unsaturated soil: II Scaling models of water transport. Hilgardia, 55(4): 33-56. Klute A (1986). Methods of Soil Analysis. Part 1. Physical and Mineralogical Methods. Second Edition. American Society of Agronomy, Inc. Kosugi K, Hopmans JW (1998). Scaling water retention curves for soils with lognormal poresize distribution. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 62(6): 1496-1505. Kutilek M, Nielsen DR (1994). Soil hydrology. Catena Verlag, Cremlingen, Germany. Miller EE, Miller RD (1956). Physical theory for capillary flow phenomena. Journal of Applied Physics, 27: 324-332. Reichardt K, Timm LC, Bacchi OOS (2003). Dimensional Analysis, Scaling and Fractals.

Lecture given at the College on Soil Physics Trieste, 3-21 March 2003, LNS0418035. Sharma ML, Gander GA, Hunt CG (1980). Spatial variability of infiltration in a watershed. Journal of Hydrology, 45: 101122. Sharma ML, Luxmoore RJ (1979). Soil spatial variability and its consequences on simulated water balance. Water Resources Research, 15: 15671573. Simmons CS, Nielsen DR, Biggar JW (1979). Scaling of field-measured soil-water properties. I. Methodology. II. Hydraulic conductivity and flux. Hilgardia, 47: 77-174. Sposito G, Jury WA (1990). Miller similitude and generalized scaling analysis. In: Scaling in Soil Physics: Principles and Applications, Hillel D, Elrick DE (Eds.); 13-22. Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin. Vachaud G, De Silans AP, Balabamnis P, Vauclin M (1985). Temporal stability of spatially measured soil water probability density function. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 49: 892898. Vogel T, Cislerova M, Hopmans JW (1991). Porous media with linearly variable hydraulic properties. Water Resources Research, 27(10): 2735-2741. Warrick AW, Mullen GJ, Nielsen DR (1977). Scaling field measured hydraulic properties using a similar media concept. Water Resources Research, 13(2): 355-362. Zhu J, Mohanty BP (2002). Spatial averaging of van Genuchten hydraulic parameters for steady state flow in heterogeneous soils. Vadose Zone Journal 1: 261272. Zhu J, Mohanty BP (2006). Effective scaling factor for transient infiltration in heterogeneous soils. Journal of Hydrology, 319: 96108.

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Henry Oppong Tuffour is a Ph.D. candidate in Soil Physics / Soil Hydrology at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana and a Soil Science lecturer at the Anglican University College of Technology, Nkoranza Campus, Ghana. He received his first degree in 2008 with the award of a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and a Master of Science in Soil Science in 2012 with major in Soil Physics and Geostatistics from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana. His current research focuses on hydrological modelling of infiltration involving the soil particle phase and groundwater quality.

Rev. Fr. Professor Mensah Bonsu is a Visiting Professor (Post-retirement from the University of Cape Coast) in Soil Science at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences of the Kwame University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He obtained his first degree in Agricultural Mechanization in 1972 and a Masters degree in Soil Science with Soil Physics major in 1978 from the University of Ghana. He later pursued another Masters degree in Soil Science (Soil Physics / Soil Hydrology Major) in 1984 and Ph.D. in Soil Science with major in Soil Physics / Soil Hydrology Major in 1987 at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He has published numerous refereed articles covering soil physics, soil hydrology, soil conservation and management, climate change and agronomy in professional journals.

Abdul Aziz Khalid obtained his first degree from the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana in General Agriculture in 2007. He later obtained his Masters degree in Soil Science with focus on soil conservation and management from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2010. He is currently studying for a Ph.D. in Soil Science at KNUST. His current research is focused on the impact of crop residue management on soil organic carbon, hydrology and agronomic production in a tropical forest zone.

Thomas Adjei-Gyapong is a Lecturer in Soil Science at the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. He holds a Master of Science degree in Physical Land Resource (Analyses Option), University of Ghent, Belgium. He has carried out extensive studies in Soil prospection, disruption and evaluation for Agriculture and Forestry.

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