soilphysics (version 5.0)

Sindex: The S Index

Description

Function to calculate the S index (Dexter, 2004) for evaluating the soil physical quality based on the Water Retention Curve (van Genuchten, 1980).

$$ S = - n * (\theta_S - \theta_R) * (1 + 1/m)^{-(1 + m)} $$

Usage

Sindex(theta_R, theta_S, alpha, n, m = 1 - 1/n, vcov = NULL,
	nsim = 999, conf.level = 0.95, graph = TRUE, ...)

Arguments

theta_R

the residual water content.

theta_S

the water content at saturation.

alpha

a scale parameter of the van Genuchten's formula.

n

a shape parameter in van Genuchten's formula.

m

a shape parameter in van Genuchten's Formula. Default is \(1-1/n\) (Mualem, 1976).

vcov

optional (default is NULL); a variance-covariance matrix of the estimates which is used to perform Monte Carlo simulations of the parameters theta_R, theta_S, alpha and n for building a simulated confidence interval of the S index (in modulus).

nsim

the number of Monte Carlo simulations; default is 999. It is used only if vcov is specified.

conf.level

the confidence level; default is 0.95. It is used only if vcov is specified.

graph

logical; if TRUE (defaul), the soil water retention curve is plotted.

…

further graphical arguments.

Value

A list of

h_i

the modulus of the water potential at the inflection point.

theta_i

the water content at the inflection point.

S.index

the modulus of the S index.

PhysicalQuality

A character indicating the soil physical quality, as proposed by Dexter (2004).

simCI

the simulated confidence interval. It is stored only if vcov is specified.

conf.level

the confidence level for the simulated confidence interval. It is stored only if vcov is specified.

References

Dexter, A. R. (2004). Soil physical quality Part I. Theory, effects of soil texture, density, and organic matter, and effects on root growth. Geoderma, 120:201-214.

Genuchten, M. T. van. (1980). A closed form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 44:892-898.

Mualem, Y. (1976). A new model for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated porous media, Water Resource Research, 12:513-522.

See Also

soilwater, fitsoilwater

Examples

# NOT RUN {
# Dexter (2004, Table 1)
Sindex(0, 0.395, 0.0217, 1.103, xlim = c(0, 1000))
Sindex(0, 0.335, 0.0616, 1.139, xlim = c(0, 1000))
# ...
Sindex(0, 0.226, 0.0671, 1.581, xlim = c(0, 1000))

# End (not run)
# }