The spatial distribution of soil moisture defines preferential flow paths in the unsaturated zone. Hence, three dimensional (3D) estimates of soil moisture are of great importance to understand transport of contaminants as well as remediation processes in the unsaturated zone. In this study 3D estimates conditioned on spatially frequent observations of soil moisture, have been obtained by kriging. The observations were divided into subdomains consistent with the local stratigraphy and directional semivariogram analysis was applied. It was found difficult to clearly identify a 3D semivariogram function in this case, but from a georadar survey two semivariogram functions were derived, describing two different sedimentological units. By conditioning the estimates of soil moisture on the sedimentological architecture computed by indicator kriging, more accurate estimates were achieved. These improvements were quantified by a ‘jackknife’ cross validation procedure. Besides the practical aspects of finding the most important flow paths estimates of soil moisture are valuable when validating unsaturated flow models.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
August 01 1997
Geostatistic Interpolation of Soil Moisture: Paper presented at the Nordic Hydrological Conference (Akureyri, Iceland - August 1996)
Nils-Otto Kitterød;
Nils-Otto Kitterød
Norwegian Water Res. and Energy Adm., N-0301 Oslo
Search for other works by this author on:
E. Langsholt;
E. Langsholt
Dept. of Geophysics, Univ. of Oslo, N-0315, Norway
Search for other works by this author on:
W. K. Wong;
W. K. Wong
Dept. of Geophysics, Univ. of Oslo, N-0315, Norway
Search for other works by this author on:
L. Gottschalk
L. Gottschalk
Dept. of Geophysics, Univ. of Oslo, N-0315, Norway
Search for other works by this author on:
Hydrology Research (1997) 28 (4-5): 307–328.
Article history
Revision Received:
September 10 1997
Accepted:
September 16 1997
Received:
October 15 1997
Citation
Nils-Otto Kitterød, E. Langsholt, W. K. Wong, L. Gottschalk; Geostatistic Interpolation of Soil Moisture: Paper presented at the Nordic Hydrological Conference (Akureyri, Iceland - August 1996). Hydrology Research 1 August 1997; 28 (4-5): 307–328. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.1998.25
Download citation file: