MASTER CLASS: The Ultimate Guide to Measuring Soil Hydraulic Properties

What you don't know about soil hydraulic properties can hurt you because soil infiltration impacts almost everything soils are used for. Six short videos teach you everything you need to know about soil infiltration testing and measuring saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in soils.

If you want to predict how water will move within your soil system, you need to understand hydraulic conductivity because it governs water flow. Soil infiltration rates impact irrigation, drainage, and how well water flows to crop roots. Infiltration measurements are used to predict erosion and determine soil health. And, in urban settings, stormwater systems and landfills need soil infiltration measurements to maximize or minimize water movement in soil. If you’re working in these situations, it’s critical to understand how to measure infiltration correctly, or you’ll risk inaccurate calculations that could lead to wrong decisions. These six short videos teach you everything you need to know about infiltration testing and measuring saturated and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in soils.

Video 1: HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY: MASTER THE BASICS

In this 30-minute webinar, world-renowned soil physicist, Dr. Gaylon S. Campbell, teaches the basics of soil infiltration and how to measure it correctly.

Video 2: INFILTRATION TESTING: HOW MANY MEASUREMENTS ARE ENOUGH?

Drs. Andrea Welker and Kristin Sample-Lord, researchers at Villanova University, are changing the way infiltration measurements are captured while keeping the standards of measurement high. They ran many infiltration tests with three types of infiltrometers with a variety of sizes and soil types. In this 30-minute webinar, they discuss what they found to be the acceptable statistical mean for a single rain garden. Plus, they reveal the pros and cons of each infiltrometer type and which ones were the most practical to use.

Video 3: SOIL HYDRAULIC PROPERTIES—8 MEASUREMENT MISTAKES TO AVOID

In this 30-minute webinar, Leo Rivera explains common mistakes to avoid and best practices that will save you time, increase your accuracy, and prevent problems that could reduce the quality of your data.

ARTICLE: HOW DO SATURO READINGS COMPARE TO DOUBLE RING INFILTROMETER READINGS?

The SATURO and the double-ring infiltrometer are both ring infiltrometers that infiltrate water from the surface into soils. See how they compare

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Video 4: HOW TO MEASURE HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY

Leo Rivera discusses how to better understand water movement through soil. Discover how to measure hydraulic conductivity what it can tell you about the fate of water in your system.

Video 5: WHICH HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY METHOD SHOULD YOU CHOOSE?

In this 20-minute webinar, METER research scientist Leo Rivera discusses how to choose the right hydraulic conductivity instrument for your application.

Video 6: MEASUREMENTS AND MODELS FOR MACROPORE INFILTRATION IN SOIL

Macropore models that include characterization of the geometry of the macropores tend to be complicated and require more parameters than can be determined from a reasonable set of independent measurements. World-renowned scientist, Dr. John Norman, shares the M&M model approach, which is a relatively simple macropore model only requiring nine parameters.