Analysis of Soil Water Characteristic and Water Stress Estimates using the Soil-Plant-Air-Water (SPAW) Model.

Abstract

This study presents the status of selected soil sites in north central Nigeria. Hydrologic analyses often involve the evaluation of soil water infiltration, hydraulic conductivity, water storage, and plant-water relationship. The results revealed that soil depths of 0-15 cm had higher soil-water release rates than the fine-textured soil at 15-30 cm depth. Sandy loam and sandy clay loam were the major soil textures found in the selected sites. The highest moisture content of the soil was 20.22% at 15-30 cm depth whereas the lowest moisture content of 15.8% and bulk density of 1.80 were obtained at 15-30 cm. The model for predicting water content for wilting point using some physical properties of the soil ranged between 13.70% and 22.40% whereas at field capacity water content ranged between 24% to 30.10%. The result shows that there was no significant effect of the predicted soil parameter using both the Levene’s Test for Equalit y of variance and T-test for equality of means. There was a no significant effect of the moisture content and bulk density at (P≤0.05), which indicate that the predicted data was were adequate and revealed the true characteristics of the site location. It was therefore concluded that the study area is suitable for irrigation practice and that the SPAW model can be adopted for use provided some conditions such as the initial moisture content of the study area is considered.