Moisture Release Characteristics and Porosity of Twelve Scottish Soil Series and Their Variability

Summary Moisture release characteristics were measured in triplicate at nine sites for each of twelve soil series. Water content was linearly related to log suction for loamy soils, but a strongly curved relationship was found for dominantly sandy or clayey soils. Some series were highly variable, due mainly to textural variations within series, but texturally uniform series were less variable. The largest significant differences between series were given by the drainable pore space of B horizons, a useful property for drainage design advice; for some series drainable pore space indicated a different permeability than might have been expected from natural profile morphology.