Hydro-pedotransfer functions: A roadmap for future development

Abstract. Hydro-pedotransfer functions (PTFs) relate easy-to-measure and readily available soil information to soil hydraulic properties for applications in a wide range of process-based and empirical models, thereby enabling the assessment of soil hydraulic effects on hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. At least more than four decades of research have been invested to derive such relationships. However, while models, methods, data storage capacity, and computational efficiency have advanced, there are fundamental concerns related to the scope and adequacy of current PTFs, particularly when applied to parameterize models used at the field scale and beyond. Most of the PTF development process has focused on refining and advancing the regression methods, while fundamental aspects have remained largely unconsidered. Most system settings are not captured by existing PTFs, which have been built mostly for agricultural soils in temperate climates. Thus. existing PTFs largely ignorie how parent material, vegetation, land use, and climate affect processes that shape soil hydraulic properties. The PTFs used to parameterise the Richards-Richardson equation are mostly limited to predicting parameters of the van Genuchten-Mualem soil hydraulic functions, despite sufficient evidence demonstrating their shortcomings. Another fundamental issue relates to the diverging scales of derivation and application, whereby PTFs are derived based on laboratory measurements while being often applied at field to regional scales. Scaling, modulation, and constraining strategies exist to alleviate some of these shortcomings in the mismatch between scales. These aspects are addressed here in a joint effort by the members of the International Soil Modelling Consortium (ISMC) Pedotransfer Functions Working Group with the aim to systematise PTF research and provide a roadmap guiding both PTF development and use.