The saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil (Ksat) is one of the most relevant variables for studies concerning water and solutes movement in soil. Its determination in laboratory and field gives results with high dispersion, indicating that this property is highly variable. The Ksat is also dependent of other soil properties, mainly soil density, particles density, total porosity, micro porosity and macro porosity. A characterization and a larger understanding of this dependence becomes fundamental to allow any conclusions on the soils processes. The aim of this work was to explain the influence of these properties on Ksat and on water and solute movement in soils. A previous statistical characterization of the variables reveals that they can have different frequency distributions than Ksat, implicating in different variability and number of samples necessary to draw conclusions with the same reliability. Therefore, researchers should evaluate the risk in the estimate of dependent measures of Ksat and values they adopt for the properties of the soil for to be used in operations of agricultural practices.
water and solutes movement in soil; physical properties of the soil; variability; sampling