Field Validation of Soil Survey Estimates of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity in Benchmark Soils of Puerto Rico.

Among soil properties inventoried in Soil Survey data bases are values of soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (K_sat). Due to the high variability of K_sat, values are listed in the form of classes or intervals ranging over approximately one order of magnitude. The K_sat class values are generally not measured, but rather are estimated from properties such as soil texture, structure and bulk density. This study evaluated the accuracy of these estimates for 10 benchmark soils of Puerto Rico, by measuring numerous  (n>12) K_sat values at each benchmark site with  Guelph permeameters and comparing confidence intervals of the measured geometric means to the rated K_sat class boundaries.