New pedotransfer functions for soil water retention curves that better account for bulk density effects

Abstract Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) describing soil water retention curves (WRCs) have been widely used in crop, soil, and land surface models. A limitation of the available PTFs is that they fail to account for shape changes WRCs due bulk density variations caused by tillage, compaction, other processes. This study develops new include effects on WRC shape. framework introduced build density-associated based a widely-used dataset. The were validated comparing performance with two common from literature using independent datasets. results show newly developed provide reliable estimates validation datasets, mean RMSE values 0.055 0.059 m3 m-3, respectively. accuracy comparable or some cases better than PTFs. While investigated do not always properly describe changes, effectively such shape, thus potential be integrated into crop management models represent impacts anthropogenic (e.g., plowing compaction) natural wetting/drying)