Evaluation and Development of Pedo-Transfer Functions for Predicting Soil Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity in the Alpine Frigid Hilly Region of Qinghai Province

In recent years, Pedo-Transfer Functions (PTFs) have become a commonly used tool to predict the hydraulic properties of soil. As an important index evaluate function forest water conservation, prediction saturated conductivity (KS) on regional scale is great significance guide vegetation construction returning farmland area. However, if published PTFs are directly applied areas where soil conditions different from those established, their predictive performance will be greatly reduced. this study, 10 basic were measured as input variables for KS in three watersheds Taergou, Anmentan, and Yangjiazhai alpine frigid hilly region Qinghai Province, China. The parameters eight modified by least-squares method new also constructed, was evaluated. results showed that coniferous broad-leaved mixed forests pure study area significantly higher than forests, grassland lowest (p > 0.05). Soil Organic Matter plays role predicting should variable when establishing PTFs. Analysis-Back Propagation Artificial Neural Network (BP ANN) PTF with were, Si·SOM, BD·Si, ln2Cl, SOM2, SOM·lnCl had better MLR