Peters-Iden-Durner (PDI) Model Applicability for Hydraulic Properties of Hydric Soils on the Tibetan Plateau Authors
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Hydric soils on the Tibetan Plateau present nonmonotonic retention curves due to sphagnum content and clay aggregation. We tested unimodal and bimodal parameterizations of the Peters-Iden-Durner (PDI) model using 96 soil cores (0-50 cm) collected from three hydric soil types. The bimodal-PDI scheme improved fitting performance, with R² > 0.96 and RMSE reduced from 0.018 to 0.011 cm³•cm⁻³ compared to unimodal models. Hydraulic conductivity predictions were enhanced across the full moisture range, particularly near field capacity, where deviations decreased by 30-35%. These results confirm that the bimodal-PDI approach provides a robust parameterization for Tibetan hydric soils, suitable for inverse modeling of evaporation experiments and regional water balance estimation.
Authors: Jonathan M Walker¹, Rachel L Martinez², David K Simmons¹, Emily J Harper², Michael R Bennett¹
Language: English
Topic: Soil and Unsaturated Flow
Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4414108596