Mady A.Y., Shein E.V.
MODELING SOIL THERMAL DIFFUSIVITY AS A FUNCTION OF SOIL MOISTURE ^{[№ 12 ' 2016]}
Soil thermal parameters are playing an important role in soil heat transfer. Mathematical models and Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) are considered the modern soil physics. Thermal diffusivity is an important parameter of the soil thermal properties, used to study the soil heat flow. Recently, PTFs are widely used to forecast thermal properties. The aim of the work is to ascertain the relation between thermal diffusivity and soil moisture by a model. The relationship between thermal diffusivity and soil moisture by is described by a quadratic equation, and then determined the parameters of this equation using PTFs. The determination coefficient (R²), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Willams-Kloot test exhibited that the proposed PTF of the quadratic equation is better than Arkhangelskaya (2004) model for predicting soil thermal diffusivity as a function of soil physical properties.