Hydraulic properties of typical salt-affected soils in Jiangsu Province, China

Every year about 1,500 ha of land is reclaimed from the sea along the coastline of Jiangsu Province, China. It is important to characterize the hydraulic properties of this reclaimed land to be able to predict and manage salt and water movement for amelioration of these saline soils. In this paper, we report hydraulic properties of these salt-affected soils. The pressure-plate method, constant head method, the crust method and Klute's method were used in this study. The saturated hydraulic conductivities of the soils ranged from 128.66 to 141.26 cm/day and decreased with increasing soil depth. The unsaturated hydraulic conductivities followed an exponential function of pressure head. The soil water retention curves were similar for three soil layers in the soil. The saturated water content, field capacity and wilting point decreased with increasing soil depth. Plant available water contents of the three layers in the soil profile were 0.21, 0.20 and 0.19 cm³/cm³, respectively. The unsaturated soil water diffusivity of the studied soils ranged from 0.07 to 10.46 cm²/min, and was related to the water content via an exponential relationship.