Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384

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Advances in Water Resources

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Dynamic evolution of the soil pore size distribution and its connection to
soil management and biogeochemical processes
Norman Pelak a,b,c,∗, Amilcare Porporato b
a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
c
Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, CA, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Soil properties are determined by a complex arrangement of pores, particles, and aggregates, which may change in
Soil hydraulic properties time as a result of both ecohydrological dynamics and land management processes. The soil pore size distribution
Pore size distribution (PSD), which typically is treated as a static component, is a key determinant of soil properties, and its accurate
Tillage
representation has the potential to improve hydrological and crop models. Following previous work by Or et al.
Soil biogeochemistry
(2000), a modeling framework is proposed for the time evolution of the PSD which takes into account processes
such as tillage, consolidation, and changes in organic matter. A time-varying power law PSD is obtained as
the solution of a special form of transport equation for the PSD, parameterized using data from the literature to
capture, in a parsimonious and efficient manner, the changes in the PSD as a result of the soil processes considered.
Alterations in soil properties brought about by tillage, consolidation, and organic matter are then discussed. The
potential benefit of this method for determining soil properties over the more widely used pedotransfer functions
(PTF) is that it allows for the history of the soil, rather than only its present state, to be taken into account when
estimating soil properties, and it does so in a physically consistent manner, leading to the widely used power law
expression for soil properties with few parameters.

1. Introduction
The properties of a soil are determined by a complex arrangement
of pores, particles, and aggregates, but the temporal evolution of these
properties and their links to biogeochemical cycles are typically not
taken into account in current biogeochemical and ecohydrological mod-
els. An accurate representation of soil properties such as the water re-
tention curve (WRC) and hydraulic conductivity curve (HCC) is needed
for such models in both natural and agricultural environments, as they
largely control the soil moisture balance, which plays a key role in the
hydrologic cycle (e.g. Manzoni and Porporato, 2009; Porporato et al.,
2015). However, direct measurement of these properties for a particu-
lar soil is often infeasible, leading to the need to estimate them based
on more easily obtained information, such as the silt/sand/clay frac-
tions, bulk density, and organic matter. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs),
which use large soil databases to statistically relate such basic data to
the soil properties of interest, have been widely used to estimate use-
ful soil properties from more readily available data (e.g. Wösten et al.,
2001; Vereecken et al., 2010), but they are largely empirical and limited
in their physical information content. Among their main limitations is
that their ability to predict soil properties outside of the regions or soil
types which were used to create the functions is unknown and uncertain.
Also, they provide little information about soil structure, such as the
shape of the pore size distribution (PSD), and although more recently
Vereecken et al. (2010) suggested the development of temporal PTFs
to better represent the time-evolution of soil properties, they still im-
plicitly assume static conditions and do not account for time-dependent
processes.
Although they are often taken to be constant in modeling applica-
tions, soil properties do change even over relatively short timescales, es-
pecially under the influence of human activities (Vereecken et al., 2010).
Combined with the well-recognized importance of the PSD in determin-
ing soil properties, this has led to efforts to model the time-evolution of
the PSD and thereby the dynamics of the WRC and HCC (Or et al., 2000;
Leij et al., 2002a; 2002b). Maggi and Porporato (2007) also coupled the
PSD with biological processes to understand the effect of bioclogging
on soil hydraulic properties. We follow this work by developing a PSD
model which evolves in time as a result of time-dependent soil processes
and biogeochemical cycling.
Our model differs from previous efforts in that we make use of a
simple power law description of the PSD, which has the advantage of
a clear connection to the well known power law WRC (e.g. Brooks and

∗
Corresponding author: Now at Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, CA, USA.
E-mail address: npelak@ucmerced.edu (N. Pelak).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2019.103384
Received 12 April 2019; Received in revised form 19 July 2019; Accepted 29 July 2019
Available online 30 July 2019
0309-1708/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
N. Pelak and A. Porporato Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384

Corey, 1964; Clapp and Hornberger, 1978) and has a basis in the fractal
fragmentation of soils (Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1992; Perrier et al., 1996).
While the power law model is not applicable in all cases and its form
imposes certain limitations on the shape of the distribution, due to its
widespread use, physical basis, and the ease with which it can be linked
to bulk soil properties, it constitutes a desirable, parsimonious model of
the PSD. We also consider biogeochemical processes by connecting the
parameters to the soil organic matter (SOM) content. We first develop
an evolution equation for the dynamics of the pore size distribution and
derive the power law distribution as one of its solutions. We then derive
expressions for key soil properties from the power law PSD, and with
a careful consideration of experimental data from the literature, link
its parameters to key soil processes and management activities such as
tillage, soil consolidation, and changes in SOM. Finally, we show how
these processes alter the PSD and soil properties.
2. Dynamic pore size distribution
2.1. Evolution equation
We model the time-evolution of the pore size distribution 𝑓 = 𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡)
as a function of the pore radius r and the time t via a generic transport
equation of the form
𝜕𝑓 𝜕
= [𝑣𝑓 ] − 𝑚𝑓 , (1)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑟
where 𝑣 = 𝑣(𝑟, 𝑡) is a drift term, and 𝑚 = 𝑚(𝑟, 𝑡) is a source/sink term.
This equation represents the evolution of the ensemble frequency distri-
bution of pore radii. The term v represents the shrinking of a pore radii
as a function of pore radius and time, while m represents the instanta-
neous rate of gain or loss of pores of radius r. This type of equation is
typically used in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics and kinetic theo-
ries to describe the evolution of statistical distributions of multiparticle
systems (Balescu, 1997). A sample application to the PSD can be seen
in Fig. 1. In the top panel of Fig. 1, trajectories of individual pores of
radius r gradually decrease according to v(r, t), and are randomly lost
according to m(r, t). The bottom left and right panels show the PSD, f(r,
t), at 𝑡 = 0 and 𝑡 = 18 years, respectively. The expressions for f(r, t), v(r,
t), and m(r, t) are discussed in Section 2.3.
Or et al. (2000) applied a related evolution equation (the Fokker-
Planck equation) to the time evolution of the PSD and obtained a log-
normal PSD, a distribution which was first used for this purpose by
Brutsaert (1966) and later by Kosugi (1994, 1996). Unlike in that study,
we do not include a diffusion term (i.e., a term depending on the sec-
ond derivative of f with respect to r, 𝜕 2 f/𝜕r2 ). The presence of such a
term requires careful justification, because it is linked to a random walk
of the individual pore sizes r(t) (e.g. a random walk in the top panel of
Fig. 1, in addition to the drift and mortality terms). However, reasonable
forms of the PSD may be obtained in this way, and might be justified by
the consideration of processes such as wet/dry and freeze/thaw cycles,
which are not considered here. One could also consider additional in-
tegral terms describing sudden changes in pore structure (such as those
brought about by tillage). Rather than doing this, we assume that tillage
resets the soil pore system with new initial conditions, so that Eq. (1) de-
scribes the continuous evolution of the system between tillage events.
2.2. Power law pore size distribution
We assume that in its evolution the PSD retains its power law form
with time-varying parameters
𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡) = 𝑎(𝑡)𝑟−𝑏(𝑡) 0 ≤ 𝑟 ≤ 𝑅𝑚 (𝑡), (2)
in which a(t) is a scaling parameter, b(t) is the power law exponent, and
Rm (t) is the maximum effective pore radius. The power law PSD can be
obtained as a solution to Eq. (1), which is discussed further in the next
section and in the Appendix. Rm is related to the air-entry or bubbling
pressure, which can be defined as the matric pressure at which air enters
the soil pores (Brooks and Corey, 1964).
The integral of the PSD over r is equal to the porosity, 𝜙(t), which
is equivalent to the soil water content at saturation. We can therefore
solve for 𝜙(t) as
𝑅𝑚 (𝑡) 𝑎(𝑡)𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)1−𝑏(𝑡)
𝜙(𝑡) = 𝑎(𝑡) 𝑟−𝑏(𝑡) 𝑑𝑟 = , (3)
∫0 1 − 𝑏(𝑡)
from which the scaling parameter a(t) is
𝜙(𝑡)(1 − 𝑏(𝑡))
𝑎(𝑡) = , (4)
𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)1−𝑏(𝑡)
yielding the full expression for the PSD
( )
𝜙(𝑡)(1 − 𝑏(𝑡)) −𝑏(𝑡)
𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡) = 𝑟 . (5)
𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)1−𝑏(𝑡)

In order for the integral to converge, it is necessary that b(t) < 1, which is
a requirement for the model to be physically realistic. In the next section
we develop expressions for v and m which allow us to obtain a power
law form of the PSD.

2.3. Terms of the evolution equation

We now return to the as yet undefined terms of the evolution equa-

tion, Eq. (1), the drift v(t) and the source/sink m(t). In order to obtain a
power law PSD which evolves in time, these terms must be
𝑟 ( )
𝑣(𝑟, 𝑡) = 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏′ (𝑡) ln(𝑟) − 𝑎′ (𝑡) , (6)
𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡)
and
𝑏′ (𝑡) 𝑎′ (𝑡)
𝑚(𝑟, 𝑡) = (1 + ln(𝑟)) − , (7)
𝑏(𝑡) 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡)
where the time-derivative of the parameters is indicated with a prime
Fig. 1. The top panel shows sample trajectories of pores of radius r as they drift (′) symbol. With these terms, we obtain a form of Eq. (1) which can be
and close according to v(r, t) and m(r, t), respectively. Note that only pore closure solved analytically using the method of characteristics (Logan, 2013)
is visible in this figure because the source/sink term leads to pore opening only leading to a power law solution (see the Appendix for details). The initial
for very small values of r. A tillage event at 𝑡 = 18 years (grey line) resets the condition for this problem is
PSD to the initial condition. The initial PSD at 𝑡 = 0 years (bottom left) and the
final PSD at 𝑡 = 18 years (bottom right) are also shown. 𝑓 (𝑟, 0) = 𝑓0 (𝑟) = 𝑎(0)𝑟−𝑏(0) , 0 < 𝑟 < 𝑅𝑚 (0), 𝑡 = 0. (8)
N. Pelak and A. Porporato
Fig. 2. Example of using the Ψ − 𝜃 data to obtain the model parameters. Here,
the data is from Teiwes (1988). The ‘NoTill’ data are from the long term plot
without tillage, and the ‘Mid’ data are from samples which were taken at ap-
proximately the midpoint between annual tillage, roughly 180 days after tillage
occurred.
As previously stated, we assume that the system resets with new initial
conditions at each tillage event. In the following sections, we will de-
velop expressions for key soil properties, as well as discuss the model
parameterization and the dependence of the parameters on both time
and soil biogeochemical cycling.
3. Soil hydraulic properties
In order to utilize the results of this study in an ecohydrological
model, we obtain expressions for the evolution of key soil properties,
in particular the WRC and the HCC. Note that the PSD is intended as an
average over the soil depth, as we do not consider different soil horizons
or a vertically explicit representation of soil properties, and so these ex-
pressions should likewise be taken as average values. Using the methods
outlined by Mualem and Dagan (1978) and Brutsaert (2005), we model
the flow of water through the soil by assuming that the soil pores act
as capillary tubes, with a distribution of pore sizes determined by the
normalized PSD (i.e., the probability density function of r), and derive
the following expression for the matric potential Ψs
( )
𝐶𝑠
Ψ𝑠 (𝑠, 𝑡) = − 𝑠−1∕(1−𝑏(𝑡)) , (9)
𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)
where s is the relative soil moisture and Cs is a constant related to the
surface tension of water (a derivation can be found in the Appendix).
We can invert this expression to solve for the relative soil moisture at a
particular matric potential. For example, we can obtain the soil moisture
at the wilting point sw by solving for s with the wilting matric potential,
Ψ𝑠𝑤 , as
( )
−Ψ𝑠𝑤 𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)
𝑏(𝑡)−1
𝑠𝑤 (𝑡) = . (10)
𝐶𝑠
The same procedure can be followed to obtain other values of interest
for soil moisture, such as the hygroscopic point and the point of incipient
water stress. Values for the wilting point vary with the plant type, but
in this study we use Ψ𝑠𝑤 = −1.5 MPa (this is a typical value for a crop
such as maize, though a value of −3 MPa is often used for stress tolerant
plants (Rodríguez-Iturbe and Porporato, 2004)).
An expression for the HCC can also be obtained by treating the soil
pores as a series of parallel tubes with a distribution of radii determined
by the PSD (Mualem and Dagan, 1978; Brutsaert, 2005). As this tends
to lead to an unrealistically high value for the saturated hydraulic con-
ductivity, a so-called series-parallel model can be used, in which the
Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384
Fig. 3. The PSD for the tilled and untilled soils of Teiwes (1988).
parallel tubes are cut normal to the flow direction and randomly re-
arranged (Brutsaert, 2005), leading to the following expression for the
hydraulic conductivity
𝛾𝑤 𝐺𝑒 𝜙(𝑡)2 𝑅𝑚 (𝑡)2 (1 − 𝑏(𝑡))2 4−2𝑏(𝑡)
𝐾(𝑠, 𝑡) = 𝑠 1−𝑏(𝑡) , (11)
𝜇(3 − 𝑏(𝑡))(2 − 𝑏(𝑡))
where 𝛾 w is the specific weight and 𝜇 is the dynamic viscosity of water.
If the flow in the pores follows the Hagen-Poiseuille equation, 𝐺𝑒 = 1∕8
(Brutsaert, 2005). Another soil property of interest, the field capacity,
may be defined as the value of s at which the hydraulic conductivity
becomes negligible compared to the maximum daily evapotranspiration
rate (Rodríguez-Iturbe and Porporato, 2004).
3.1. Model parameterization
As the WRC curve is generally easier to measure than pore size data,
it is useful to estimate the latter from the former. We can relate the soil
moisture s to the water content 𝜃(t) and the porosity 𝜙(t) as
𝜃(𝑡)
𝑠(𝜃(𝑡), 𝑡) = , (12)
𝜙(𝑡)
which allows us to rewrite Eq. (9) as
( )( )
𝐶𝑠 𝜃(𝑡) −1∕(1−𝑏(𝑡))
Ψ𝑠 (𝜃(𝑡), 𝑡) = − . (13)
𝑅𝑚 (𝑡) 𝜙(𝑡)
We estimated the parameter values by using the Matlab constrained min-
imization function ‘fmincon’ to minimize the root mean square error
(RMSE) between Eq. (13) and the data. While developing this model,
we explored other parameterizations of the WRC (for example, includ-
ing a residual porosity or a minimum pore radius) but found that these
additional parameters had little effect on the model results, and so in the
interest of parsimony we have neglected them. Fig. 2 shows an example
of this fitting to data of Teiwes (1988) (obtained from Leij et al., 2002b),
which compares data from two experimental sites, one which had been
tilled annually and one which was managed using no-till methods.
4. Connection of parameters to temporal and biogeochemical
processes
We separate the important factors which affect the PSD parameters
into those which are explicitly time-dependent (including external forc-
ing such as soil tillage and internal processes such as consolidation) and
those which depend on the soil biogeochemistry. The effect of soil bio-
geochemistry on soil structure and properties are complex. To account
N. Pelak and A. Porporato
Fig. 4. The three model parameters as a function of soil organic matter (C). The
data points are from Naveed et al. (2014) and the lines are fit as desctibed in
Section 4.2.
for these effects in our model, we adopt the soil organic matter con-
tent, C(t), as a means to encapsulate the effect of soil biogeochemical
changes on the soil. While this is certainly a simplification, it is a nec-
essary one to maintain the parsimonious description of the soil PSD. In
order to incorporate the effects of time dependent processes and soil or-
ganic matter, we posit that these changes are sufficiently independent
Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384
Fig. 5. Timeseries for the varying SOM levels representing low, middle, and
high inputs (of fertilizer, manure, or other amendments which tend to increase
SOM) and which were used to drive the results of Figs. 6 and 7.
that they can be accounted for with two multiplicative terms. In real-
ity, of course, they are not likely to be completely independent, but this
is a useful first step to separate these two important influences. In this
way, it represents an improvement on a typical pedotransfer function,
for which, all else being equal, a given value of SOM will always result
in the same soil properties, because time-dependent information such as
the time when the soil was last tilled are not taken into account.
Below, we present only the results for the power law exponent b, but
the same procedure was followed for all parameters. We separate the
factors which control the value of b into two parts: first, a function 𝛾 b (t)
which is used to account for explicitly time-dependent changes in the
PSD, and second, a component bC (C(t)), which relates the value of b to
the SOM content. These terms are then multiplied together to obtain an
expression for b(t, C(t))
𝑏(𝑡, 𝐶(𝑡)) = 𝛾𝑏 (𝑡) ⋅ 𝑏𝐶 (𝐶(𝑡)). (14)
The next subsections discuss 𝛾 b (t) and bC (C(t)), respectively.
4.1. Tillage and consolidation term
Differences in the soil properties of tilled and untilled soils are evi-
dent in many studies (Teiwes, 1988; Arshad et al., 1999; Or et al., 2000;
Leij et al., 2002b) and can be seen for example in Fig. 2. While tillage
induces an immediate change in the PSD, there is also a consolidation
process which occurs over a larger timescale as larger pores close and
the distribution of pore sizes changes (Hillel, 1980; Jiang et al., 2018).
In order to incorporate the effect of tillage and consolidation into
our model, we utilized data (Teiwes, 1988) which presents contrasting
WRC curves from plots which were tilled annually and those which were
left untilled for an extended period (in this case, 18 years). Fig. 3 shows
the fitted PSD model before and after tillage. The samples were taken
approximately 6 months ( ≈ 180 d) after the soil was tilled. For each pa-
rameter, we obtained the ratio between the no-till and the tilled value.
Based on the empirical differences between the PSD of tilled and no-till
soils (Fig. 2) we assume that there is a consistent ratio of the value of
each parameter at two given points in time (e.g., the ratio of a parameter
immediately after tillage and after maximum consolidation is constant),
and that this ratio is independent of the current SOM content. Given the
time scales of interest in this work, ranging from days to multiple grow-
ing seasons, tillage is assumed to occur instantaneously, and is followed
by consolidation, which is modeled by an exponential decline towards
N. Pelak and A. Porporato Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384

Fig. 6. Timeseries for the wilting point sw (top left) and the saturated hydraulic conductivity Ksat (bottom left) for seven years of tillage followed by a no till period
and varying SOM levels. Also shown are the WRC (top right) and the HCC (bottom right) at time points A, B, and C.

the untilled state. Therefore, we write the settling term 𝛾 b as 4.2. SOM relationship

𝛾𝑏 (𝑡) = 𝑟𝑏 + (1 − 𝑟𝑏 ) exp{−𝑘𝑏 (𝑡 − 180)},
where rb is the ratio of the no-till parameter value to the base value,
kb is the time-rate of settling, and t is the time since the soil was tilled
(at which point the PSD is reset with a new initial condition). In this
way, when 𝑡 = 180 days (the soil has been tilled 180 days prior), the
consolidation term 𝛾𝑏 = 1 and the modeled PSD matches the data. As
t → ∞ (after a long period without tillage) the consolidation term 𝛾 b → rb
and the PSD approaches the untilled state. By assuming a constant value
for kb , the parameter values at tillage can be obtained by setting 𝑡 =
0 days. The effect of the 𝛾 term on the parameter values can be seen
in the black lines in Fig. 7, which show the parameter evolution with
constant C.
(15) Organic matter is an important indicator of soil structure and func-
tion (e.g. Dexter, 2004; Dexter et al., 2008), which is demonstrated by
the inclusion of SOM as a predictor variable in many PTFs (e.g. Wösten
et al., 2001; Vereecken et al., 2010). Soils which have different levels
of organic matter clearly have different properties. In reality, there is
likely some overlap between the effect on the PSD of management prac-
tices which tend to increase or decrease SOM content and the physical
properties of SOM itself, but in this study we take the amount of SOM
as a proxy for these joint effects. The expression for bC is
𝑏𝐶 (𝐶(𝑡)) = 𝑏0 + 𝜎𝑏 𝐶(𝑡), (16)
where b0 is the parameter value at 𝐶 = 0 and 𝜎 b is the slope of the 𝑏 − 𝐶
relationship. Here we have used a linear fit, though other relationships
N. Pelak and A. Porporato
Fig. 7. In the top row and bottom left are shown timeseries for the model parameters b, Rm , and 𝜙 with exponential decay from the tilled to the untilled state and
with tillage causing instantaneous jumps back to the tilled state, for seven years of tillage followed by a no till period. In the bottom right is the PSD at time points
A, B, and C.
may be supported by additional data. Fig. 4 shows fitted relationships
for each of the three model parameters. We note that the data to which
this relationship was fit extends over a limited range, and it therefore
may not hold outside of it (for example, it may not be valid as low as
𝐶 = 0, despite the fact that b0 appears in the equation). The magnitude
of parameter changes over time due to changing C can be seen in Fig. 7.
The three lines in each panel correspond to increasing, constant, and
decreasing C.
All the data used in this study is from silt-loam soils, and it is
possible (or even likely) that other types of soils would produce sub-
stantially different results. Additionally, the tillage method used in
Teiwes (1988) was moldboard plowing, while multiple tillage types
were used in Naveed et al. (2014), including an offset disc plow and
rotary harrow. Here, we do not consider different effects for different
types of tillage, though there are differences (Heard et al., 1988), which
could possibly be taken into account by adjusting the ratios between till
and no till parameters.
Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384
5. Evolution of soil hydraulic properties and parameters
In the preceding sections we have developed a model which accounts
for the evolution of the PSD as a result of both temporal (tillage and con-
solidation) and biogeochemical (SOM content) changes in the soil, and
which connects the resulting dynamic PSD to important soil hydraulic
properties. We will now see the joint effects of these changes on the
model. The effects of biogeochemical processes are shown by varying
the SOM levels (see Fig. 5). We have imposed three theoretical regimes
of SOM dynamics, in which SOM declines, remains constant, and in-
creases, respectively. These temporal variations in SOM are consistent
with a minimal SOM model with constant inputs and first order decom-
position, and the three regimes are intended to represent low, medium
and high input levels of fertilizer, manure, or other amendments which
tend to promote SOM accumulation. The upper and lower limits of SOM
are chosen so that the results are shown over the range of SOM values
contained in the data from Naveed et al. (2014) which were used to
N. Pelak and A. Porporato
parameterize the model. The effects of temporal processes are demon-
strated by imposing a ‘Till’ period of several years of annual tillage fol-
lowed by a longer ‘No Till’ period. These periods are separated by the
gray lines in Figs. 6 and 7. Additionally, we have denoted 3 points on
Fig. 5 as A, B, and C, which we will use to indicate the differences be-
tween the soil PSD and hydraulic properties across varying times and
SOM levels.
As previously discussed, the WRC and the HCC are two key soil hy-
draulic properties which are largely controlled by the PSD. In Fig. 6, the
effects of tillage on these two properties are shown with a timeseries of
the soil wilting point sw (top left) and the saturated hydraulic conduc-
tivity Ksat (bottom left) which were estimated using Eqs. (9) and (11).
Additionally, the right side of Fig. 6 shows the WRC and the HCC at
points A, B, and C, to demonstrate how these changing soil properties
can be integrated into an ecohydrological model.
In the top panel of Fig. 6, the wilting point decreases with tillage and
for higher levels of SOM. This reflects the general purpose of tillage,
which is to improve soil structure for crop growth (Hillel, 1980), as
lowered wilting points allow crops to continue transpiring at lower soil
moisture levels. The negative relationship between sw and SOM is also
consistent with other studies which considered the impact of SOM on
soil properties (for example, Dexter, 2004 found a positive correlation
between SOM and a measure of soil physical quality).
In the bottom panel, we observe that the hydraulic conductivity Ksat
is increased with tillage and for higher values of SOM. Some studies
show an increase of soil hydraulic conductivity with tillage (Mielke
et al., 1986; Heard et al., 1988; Pikul Jr et al., 1990), which may rep-
resent an increase in the number of macropores (although macropores
are more continuous in no-till soils, Heard et al. (1988) found them
to be more numerous in tilled soils). Macroporosity is not separated
from total porosity in our model, but is related to the Rm parameter,
which also increases with tillage (see the middle panel of Fig. 7). How-
ever, it is also possible that undisturbed soils could have a higher hy-
draulic conductivity because their macropores (formed by earthworms,
insects, or roots) are more continuous and are not disrupted during
tillage (Ehlers and Van Der Ploeg, 1976; Klute, 1982; Wu et al., 1992).
The positive relationship between hydraulic conductivity and SOM can
be attributed to an associated increase in macro- and mesoporosity
(Mahmood-ul Hassan et al., 2013). The study from which we obtained
SOM data (Naveed et al., 2014) did not present hydraulic conductivity
data, though it did show a general trend of increasing air permeability
with increasing SOM, and it is to be expected that hydraulic conductivity
would trend in the same direction as air permeability.
Fig. 7 shows timeseries of the model parameters for a tilled followed
by a no-till period and for contrasting SOM levels, as in Fig. 6. Although
the power law PSD has certain limitations in the variety of soil types
that it can adequately represent, a decrease in the power law exponent
b generally means that for a particular matric pressure, the soil is capa-
ble of maintaining a higher water content, which is favorable for crops.
The top left panel of Fig. 7 shows that b decreases with tillage and with
higher levels of SOM, which is consistent with the positive correlation
of SOM with a soil quality index found elsewhere (Dexter, 2004). The
positive relationship of Rm with both tillage and SOM (top right panel)
can be connected to the associations of both with increased macroporos-
ity, as discussed previously, and is shown in the middle of Fig. 7. The
positive relationships between porosity and SOM and the decrease in 𝜙
in the absence of tillage (bottom left panel) can be seen in the bottom
panel of Fig. 7 and have support in the literature (Teiwes, 1988; Dexter
et al., 2008; Naveed et al., 2014). The bottom right panel shows the com-
bined effects of different parameter combinations on the PSD at points
A, B, and C. One potential implication of the results shown in Figs. 6 and
7 is that there may be tradeoffs between management strategies (here
encapsulated by tillage and changes in SOM) and soil properties. For
example, in the bottom left panel of Fig. 7, despite 18 years of no-till
management, at the end of the 25 years modeling period the porosity for
the high SOM treatment was over 90% of its initial value. This suggests
Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384
possibilities for optimizing management strategies in order to achieve
desired soil property outcomes. However, we emphasize that the results
shown in Figs. 5–7 do not represent a full coupling of the dynamic PSD
model to an ecohydrological model. This would include feedbacks be-
tween, for example, the soil hydraulic properties and the SOM dynamics,
and would also require estimations of other soil properties such as the
soil depth from the changes in the PSD. Such a coupling will be explored
in a follow-up publication.
6. Conclusion
The model described in this study represents realistic trends of key
soil properties as they evolve in time and change with soil biogeochem-
istry in a physically consistent manner. Changes in the key soil proper-
ties (indicated here by the WRC and the HCC as well as sw and Ksat ) and
the parameters which control them (b, Rm , 𝜙) are shown in Figs. 6 and
7. Each panel shows a timeseries of the parameter or variable, with the
soil undergoing several years of annual tillage followed by a longer pe-
riod of consolidation (corresponding to a no till period), for increasing,
decreasing, and constant SOM. The general trends shown by the soil
properties in Figs. 6 and 7 have support in the literature.
Via their dependence on SOM, these dynamic variables can be read-
ily coupled to an ecohydrological or soil biogeochemical model. We
note that the model presented here does not account for very short
term changes in soil properties, such as those due to wetting and dry-
ing cycles. However, the long-term effects of such hydrologic forcing
on soil properties could be indirectly accounted for via the changes in
SOM which would result from different hydrologic regimes or irrigation
strategies. To create Figs. 6 and 7, we imposed three contrasting SOM
regimes, which were intended to represent low, middle, and high inputs
of amendments which tend to promote the accumulation of SOM. The
power law model may in general perform less well on fine textured soils
(Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1990), and because this model is vertically av-
eraged over the soil depth, it may also be less applicable to soils with
strong vertical variation in soil type or properties.
The results in Figs. 6 and 7 point toward a means to account for the
considerable changes which can be brought about in soil properties as
a result of contrasting management strategies–specifically, those which
increase or decrease SOM, and the effect of tillage. This can be done by
providing a real coupling of this model to ordinary differential equations
describing soil biogeochemical processes and plant growth. Future con-
tributions will explore the impact of contrasting management strategies
(e.g. irrigation, fertilization, organic matter inputs) on the soil structure
and properties, as well as a coupling with a soil biogeochemistry and
plant growth model.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Stefano Manzoni for early dis-
cussions on this topic. This work was funded by the US National Sci-
ence Foundation under grants EAR-1331846, EAR-1316258, and FESD-
1338694, and the authors also acknowledge support from BP through
the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) at Princeton University.
Appendix A
A1. Solution of the PSD evolution equation
The method of characteristics (e.g., Logan, 2013) can be used to an-
alytically solve the evolution equation for the soil PSD,
𝜕𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡) 𝜕
= [𝑣(𝑟, 𝑡)𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡)] − 𝑚(𝑟, 𝑡)𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡). (A.1)
𝜕𝑡 𝜕𝑟
Assuming a drift term of the form
𝑟 ( )
𝑣(𝑟, 𝑡) = 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏′ (𝑡) ln(𝑟) − 𝑎′ (𝑡) , (A.2)
𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡)
N. Pelak and A. Porporato Advances in Water Resources 131 (2019) 103384

and a source/sink term of the form the matric pressure, Δ𝑝 = −Ψ𝑠 . We then obtain the following expression
𝑏′ (𝑡) 𝑎′ (𝑡) for the matric pressure as a function of r
𝑚(𝑟, 𝑡) = (1 + ln(𝑟)) − , (A.3)
𝑏(𝑡) 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡) 𝐶𝑠
Ψ𝑠 ( 𝑟 ) = − , (A.15)
Eq. (A.1) becomes 𝑟
where 𝐶𝑠 = 2𝜎. By substituting the previous expression for r(s), we can
𝜕𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡) 𝑟 ( ) 𝜕𝑓 (𝑟, 𝑡)
= 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏′ (𝑡) ln(𝑟) − 𝑎′ (𝑡) , (A.4) obtain the matric pressure as a function of s (i.e. the soil water retention
𝜕𝑡 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡) 𝜕𝑟
curve)
with the initial condition 𝐶𝑠
Ψ𝑠 ( 𝑠 ) = − , (A.16)
𝑓 (𝑟, 0) = 𝑓0 (𝑟) = 𝑎(0)𝑟−𝑏(0) , 0 < 𝑟 < 𝑅𝑚 (0), 𝑡 = 0. (A.5) 𝑃 −1 (𝑠)

This condition and the form of the drift and source/sink term are chosen and with the power law PSD as our starting point, we obtain the follow-
to ensure that the obtained solution is a power law at all times, as will ing expression for the WRC
( )
appear from the following solution. In the method of characteristics, the 𝐶𝑠
coordinate system in (r, t) is changed to a new one in (r0 , s) in such a Ψ𝑠 ( 𝑠 ) = − 𝑠−1∕(1−𝑏) . (A.17)
𝑅𝑚
way that the PDE becomes an ODE along the curve, (r(s), t(s)), referred
𝑑𝑟 𝑑𝑡
to as the characteristic curve. 𝑑𝑠 and 𝑑𝑠 are given by At the extreme values of s, this function is no longer dependent on the
power law exponent b:
𝑑𝑟 𝑑𝑟 𝑟 ( )
= = 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏′ (𝑡) ln(𝑟) − 𝑎′ (𝑡) , (A.6) 𝐶𝑠
𝑑𝑠 𝑑𝑡 𝑎(𝑡)𝑏(𝑡) Ψ𝑠 (𝑠 = 1) = , (A.18)
𝑅𝑚
and
𝑑𝑡 which is known as the air-entry pressure, and at the other extreme,
= 1. (A.7)
𝑑𝑠 Ψ𝑠 (𝑠 = 0) → ∞. (A.19)
From Eq. (A.7), 𝑠 = 𝑡. From Eq. (A.6), using the initial condition 𝑟(0) = 𝑟0 ,
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