ABSTRACT
On the other hand there is at present computational tools as the technique of the inverse problem,
1 INTRODUCTION
The hydraulic conductivity is an essential property for solving various engineering problems. For an unsaturated soil, hydraulic conductivity depends on the hydraulic potential or on the soil suction, this dependence being expressed in the hydraulic conductivity function. This is function difficult to measure, both in lab and in the field: it demands expertise and some special instruments, such as tensiometers and moisture content transducers and is time consuming. To overcomed those difficulties, some alternative approaches have been developed to estimate such a function, many of them resting on the soil water retention curve (van Genutchen, 1980 among others). This is a logical option, since the tests to measure soil water retention can be seen as a kind of permeability test, performed under transient conditions.
