Estimation of the Spatial Variability of the Soil‐Water Flux

A simple method for estimating the spatial variability of the soil‐water flux from known variability of soil microhydrologic properties is presented. The method is based on the theory of approximating a differentiable function using Taylor‐series expansion (TS‐method). Published data for means and variances of the soil microhydrologic properties were used to estimate the mean and variance of the soil‐water flux in a draining profile of Panoche soil. These values were compared with those estimated using a Monte Carlo simulation procedure (MC‐method) on the same set of data. Relative advantages and disadvantages of these two methods are briefly discussed.