Modeling of soil water retention curves based on two programs

Abstract

We compared two methods of modeling soil water retention curves used by scientists in Slovakia. The first modeling was done using the GENRET program and the second using the RETC program. Samples of pure sandy soil and sandy soil with applied biochar in three different particle sizes were used for the simulation. Sandy soil has a very low retention capacity therefore the modeling of soil water retention curves is not easy. Our results showed that the GENRET program can model the curve even at high pressures, which the RETC program modeled only in one variant, but the RETC program had better agreement with measured data. The most significant differences between the programs were at the lowest and highest pressures.