Differences and Relationships Within Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Five Selected Soils in Kenya

Abstract

Knowledge on physical and chemical factors in any soil is important to any one who uses the soil. This may be in agriculture or any other purposes as engineering eg. road construction, dam construction and large civil engineering works. In the study here the properties such as capillary movement of water, saturated hydraulic conductivity, bulk density, organic carbon, cation exchange capacity, electric conductivity, clay mineralogy, were analysed and results tabulated. Variation in properties within the samples was observed. Capillary rise was studied and later correlation with other factors was done. It was found that capillary was highly correlated to most of the properties analysed. Measure of capillary rise was done with the use of wetting front height. Also the weight of cumulative weight of water was determined along with wetting front height. This also had good correlation with both physical and chemical properties although the latter is better correlated. In conclusion it can be stated that when factors of good correlation are known estimate on how soil will conduct water by capillary means can be estimated. Conversely when the capillary curves from a set of soils are drawn, deduction of some soil properties can be made such as clay mineralogy, texture, and organic carbon content.