Evaluating hydraulic conductivity of desert soils at the Amargosa Desert research site near Beatty, Nevada

This study tested predictive equations of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. Quarterly measurements of water-content measured over 12 years were collected from six sites at the Amargosa Desert Research Site (ADRS) located within northern Amargosa Desert, Nevada. ADRS Soils consist of unconsolidated to weakly indurated deposits of early Pliocene and Quaternary age alluvial-fans; fluvial and freshwater deposits.; Descriptive statistics and soil properties provide input for method evaluation. Methods include those by Green and Corey (1971), and van Genuchten (1980). Resulting graphical comparisons, for both methods, suggests a good and poor correlation in trench and native devegetated sites, respectively. Conductivity values differing by 10-9 and 103 to 10 9 were consistently noted in trench-fill and native non-vegetation sites, respectively. Previously published conductivity values are similar to values obtained from the trench-fill sites. At sites in native devegetated soils, lack of consistency between methods is evident; however, values obtained do fall within previous study limits.