Estimation of the Hydrodynamic Parameters of Soils Subjected to Water Scarcity: Application of BEST and Introduction of a Specific Methodology

Abstract

Propose a specific method (Junction Between Arya and Heitman and Haverkamp - JAHH), similar to BEST, to obtain the hydrodynamic parameters of soils in Pernambuco, Brazil. Sample: Department of Civil Engineering, Polytechnic School of Pernambuco – POLI, between March 2019 and February 2021. For this, BEST and JAHH were used to obtain the hydrodynamic characteristics of the collected materials, and the results of both methods were compared with simulations performed in Hydrus-1D. Sorptivity and Ks, acquired using both methods, presented differences reached 68.38% regarding Ks. The characteristic radius of the pores (λm) and capillary length (λc) obtained with BEST are not coherent, and this can be explained because during the evaluation of one sandy soil, λm values were the highest and λc were the lowest, when the opposite was expected. The use of JAHH to estimate soil parameters could generate more coherent estimates than BEST-slope, even though both of them have presented results of the same proportion, such as sorptivity and saturated hydraulic conductivity, for exemple. Therefore, the proposed method presented more pertinent results when compared to BEST regarding the studied soils.