A Simple Model to determine Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity for Large-scale Subsurface Drainage

Saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks affects the economic and technical feasibility of large-scale subsurface drainage projects. The value of Ks is spatially variable and it is difficult to find a representative value to use in drain spacing calculations. The objectives of this research were to develop a simple method, based on geostatistic concepts for estimating a rapid and reliable representative value of Ks, for the south-western region of Iran from limited in situ measurements, suitable for large-scale drainage design, by consideration of the spatial variability of Ks. Based on the results of this study, a simple model was proposed. The values for the coefficients in this simple model differ from those for a previous study because of differences in soils, and in hydrological and agricultural conditions. Furthermore, the variance of the geometric means of the measured values for the saturated hydraulic conductivity was included as the second independent variable.