Accounting for soil structure in pedo-transfer functions: swelling vs non swelling clays

Abstract

Tropical clay Oxisols have a strong granular structure, as opposed to other clay-textured soils, such as Vertisols. Their highly aggregated structure favors infiltration and drainage, while Vertisols favor runoff, due to their high content of swelling clays. Most global scale pedotransfer functions (PTFs) are derived from soils of temperate regions where Oxisols are absent, which does not allow to represent this type of tropical soils.