Development and validation of pedotransfer functions for water retention, saturated hydraulic conductivity and aggregate stability of soils of banha watershed in Jharkhand

Multivariate linear pedotransfer functions (PTFs) were developed to predict soil moisture contents at field capacity (FC) and permanent wilting point (PWP), mean weight diameter and saturated hydraulic conductivity of soils of Banha watershed of Jharkhand. The developed functions were based on routinely and easily determined soil properties such as texture, bulk density and organic matter content. Results indicated good agreement between observed and predicted values. A few other selected PTFs were also evaluated under the given conditions. Tomasella and Hodnett (1998) model for soil moisture and Singh et al. (1992) model for saturated hydraulic conductivity estimations were found to be satisfactory under the present conditions of study.