Influence of Different Methods to Estimate the Soil Thermal Properties from Experimental Dataset

Knowledge of soil thermal properties (diffusivity (<i>k</i>) and conductivity (<i>λ</i>)) is important to understand the soil–plant–atmosphere interaction related to the physical and biological processes associated with energy transfer and greenhouse gas exchanges. The incorporation of all the physical processes that occur in the energy transfer in the soil is a challenge in order to correctly estimate soil thermal properties. In this work, experimental measurements of soil temperature and soil heat flux obtained in a silty clay loam soil covered by native grassland located in the Brazilian Pampa biome were used to estimate soil thermal properties using different methods including the influence of the soil water content at different soil depths in heat transfer processes. The <i>λ</i> was estimated using the numerical solution of the Fourier equation by the Gradient and Modified Gradient methods. For the surface layer, the results for both models show large variability in daily values, but with similar values for the annual mean. For <i>λ</i> at different soil depths, both models showed an increase of approximately 50% in the <i>λ</i> value in the deeper layers compared to the surface layer, increasing with depth in this soil type. The <i>k</i> was estimated using analytical and numerical methods. The analytical methods showed a higher variability and overestimated the values of the numerical models from 15% to 35%. The numerical models included a term related to the soil water content. However, the results showed a decrease in the mean value of <i>k</i> by only 2%. The relationship between thermal properties and soil water content was verified using different empirical models. The best results for thermal conductivity were obtained using water content in the surface layer (<i>R</i>² > 0.5). The cubic model presented the best results for estimating the thermal diffusivity (<i>R</i>² = 0.70). The analyses carried out provide knowledge for when estimating soil thermal properties using different methods and an experimental dataset of soil temperature, heat flux and water content, at different soil depths, for a representative soil type of the Brazilian Pampa biome.