From the Proceedings of the 1977 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - April 15-16, 1977, Las Vegas, Nevada / Soil water content was measured every two weeks during 1974-1975, using a neutron probe, at selected locations around the desert plant species creosote (Larria divaricata), bursage (Ambrosia deltoidea), and in an open space. The purpose of taking the measurements was to enable one to estimate the evapotranspiration rate of the desert plants by measuring soil moisture depletion. The sampling problem associated with measuring soil moisture, using neutron access tubes, is the number, location, and installation depth of the tubes. Analyses of the total soil moisture beneath the creosote plant showed greater variability between access tubes located near different plants the same distance from the crown of the plant than between tubes located around the same plant. Because of the size of the bursage plant, the variability in total soil moisture beneath the plant was greater among tubes around the same plant than between tubes at the same location at different plants.

Challenges at hazardous waste and contaminated sites are persistent, complex, and multifactorial, and unfortunately the progress in implementing solutions is slow. This delay can be attributed to the lack of collaboration, information transfer to the end-user, and partnership building among academia, government and the affected community. As a solution, Environmental Research Translation (ERT), a framework that is rooted in existing participatory models, and encompasses many of the key principles from informal science education and community-based participatory research is proposed. The ERT framework lead to a community-academic partnership called: Gardenroots: The Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona Garden Project. Vegetable gardening in contaminated soils presents a health hazard. A controlled greenhouse study was conducted in parallel with a co-created citizen science program to characterize the uptake of arsenic by homegrown vegetables near the Iron King Mine and Humboldt Smelter Superfund Site in Arizona. Community members, after training, collected soil, water and vegetable samples from their household garden. The greenhouse and home garden arsenic soil concentrations ranged from 2.35 to 533 mg kg⁻¹. In the greenhouse experiment four vegetables were grown in three different soil treatments and a total of 63 home garden produce samples were obtained from 19 properties neighboring the site. All vegetables accumulated arsenic, ranging from 0.01 - 23.0 mg kg⁻¹ dry weight. Bioconcentration factors were determined and arsenic uptake decreased in the order: Asteraceae > Brassicaceae >> Amaranthaceae > Cucurbitaceae > Liliaceae > Solanaceae > Fabaceae. Concentrations of arsenic measured in potable water, soils and vegetable samples were used in conjunction with reported US intake rates to calculate daily dose, excess cancer risk and Hazard Quotient for arsenic. Relative arsenic intake dose decreased in order: potable water > garden soils > well washed homegrown vegetables, and on average, each accounted for 79, 14 and 7%, of a residential gardener's daily arsenic intake dose. The IELCR ranges for vegetables, garden soils and potable water were 10⁻⁸ to 10⁻⁴, 10⁻⁶ to 10⁻⁴; and 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻², respectively. The ERT framework improved environmental health research, information transfer, and risk communication efforts. Incorporating the community in the scientific process lead to individual learning and community-level outcomes.

The objective of this study was to characterize non-wetting fluid in multi-phase systems comprising a range of fluid and porous medium properties. Synchrotron X-ray microtomography was used to obtain high-resolution, three-dimensional images of fluids in natural porous media. Images were processed to obtain quantitative measurements of fluid distribution, morphology, and interfacial area. Column-flooding experiments were conducted with four enhanced-solubilization (ES) solutions to examine their impact on entrapped organic liquid. Mobilization caused a change in organic-liquid morphology and distribution for most experiments. The effect of ES-solution flooding on fluid-fluid interfacial area was similar to that of water flooding. Organic-liquid mobilization was observed at total trapping numbers that were smaller than expected. This was attributed to pore-scale mobilization of blobs that were re-trapped prior to being eluted from the column. Pore-scale mobilization was also observed during water-flooding experiments for which trapping numbers varied over several orders of magnitude. Water-flooding and surfactant-flooding experiments were compared to investigate the impact of interfacial tension, viscosity, and fluid velocity on entrapped organic liquid. For similar total trapping numbers, flooding at larger velocities appeared to have a greater effect on the distribution of non-wetting blobs than lowering interfacial tension or increasing the viscosity of the wetting fluid. The fluid-normalized interfacial area was generally independent of the total trapping number. Finally, the impact of fluid type on the interfacial area between different pairs of non-wetting fluids was investigated during drainage and imbibition in four natural porous media. Interfacial areas were similar among all fluid pairs for a given porous medium. They were also similar for drainage and imbibition conditions. The maximum specific interfacial area (A(m)) was determined to quantify the magnitude of interfacial area associated with a given porous medium. The value of A(m) was larger for the media with smaller median grain diameters. Therefore, physical properties of the porous medium appear to have a greater influence on the magnitude of specific total interfacial area for a given saturation than fluid properties or wetting-phase history.

It is now widely accepted that surface contamination plays an important role in the transmission of both respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in the domestic environment and community setting. The efficiency of transfer of a pathogen to the hand from a fomite is important in modeling transmission in microbial risk assessment models. The objective of this study was to use published literature to assess the role of fomites and hands in disease transmission, and to conduct fomite-to-finger transfer studies from various porous and nonporous fomites under different relative humidity condition using non-pathogenic strains of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, MS2 coliphage, Bacillus thuringiensis spores, and poliovirus 1; to evaluate the persistence of bacteria and viruses on surfaces; to examine bacteria and virus transfer from treated surfaces; and to conduct a foodborne quantitative microbial risk assessment using Campylobacter jejuni from the data obtained in these studies. It was found that numerous factors influence the transfer efficiency of microorganisms, with moisture being the most important, with greater transfer under humid conditions. Other factors influencing transfer include drying time, contact time, pressure, friction, type of material, and porosity of the fomite. Percent transfer was greater under high relative humidity for both porous and nonporous surfaces. Most organisms on average had greater transfer under high relative humidity (40 - 65%) compared to low relative humidity (15 - 32%). Relative humidity and fomite type influenced the survival of all studied organisms; survival was greater on nonporous surfaces than those for porous surfaces. Test organisms were reduced up to 99.997% on the fomites after the surfaces were wiped with a disinfectant wipe. Microbial fomite-to-finger transfer from disinfectant wipe-treated surfaces were, lower than from non-treated surfaces. The disinfectant-wipe intervention reduced the risk of Campylobacter infection, illness, and death by 2 to 3 orders on all fomites. The disinfectant-wipe intervention reduced the annual risk of illness below the reported national average of diagnosed Campylobacteriosis cases 1.3E-04. This risk assessment demonstrates that the use of disinfectant wipes to decontaminate surface areas after chicken preparation reduces the risk of C. jejuni infections up to 99.2%.

]The scale difference between point in situ soil moisture measurements and low resolution satellite products limits the quality of any validation efforts in heterogeneous regions. Cosmic Ray Neutron Probes (CRNP) could be an option to fill the scale gap between both systems, as they provide area-average soil moisture within a 150-250 m radius footprint. In this study, we evaluate differences and similarities between CRNP observations, and surface soil moisture products from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2), the METOP-A/B Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT), the Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP), the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS), as well as simulations from the Global Land Data Assimilation System Version 2 (GLDAS2). Six CRNPs located on five continents have been selected as test sites: the Rur catchment in Germany, the COSMOS sites in Arizona and California (USA), and Kenya, one CosmOz site in New SouthWales (Australia), and a site in Karnataka (India). Standard validation scores as well as the Triple Collocation (TC) method identified SMAP to provide a high accuracy soil moisture product with low noise or uncertainties as compared to CRNPs. The potential of CRNPs for satellite soil moisture validation has been proven; however, biomass correction methods should be implemented to improve its application in regions with large vegetation dynamics.

Master of Science / Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering / Kyle R. Douglas-Mankin / Aleksey Y. Sheshukov / According the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) website, our planet is at risk of global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions. The earth’s average temperature has been reported to have risen by 1.4°F over the last century. This seemingly small increase in average planetary temperature has been linked to devastating floods, severe heat waves, and dangerous and unpredictable shifts in our climate (US EPA, 2013a). In the 2012 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that bioenergy has the potential to significantly mitigate greenhouse gases as long as this is produced in a sustainable manner (Chum, et al., 2011). In light of these facts, research into the sustainable production of bioenergy sources in the United States is currently underway. To ensure that the correct biofuel crop is selected for a given region and to investigate any secondary effects of changing our nation’s agricultural practices to include biofuels, computer models can be very useful. The Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a robust, continuous time step model that was developed by the USDA Agricultural Resource Service that can simulate changes in land use and land management and the effect this has on erosion, water quality, and other important factors. This paper describes the preliminary work to create a model of the Kanopolis Lake Watershed that is part of the Kansas River Basin using SWAT 2009. Data pertaining to weather, topography, land use, management, stream flow, and reservoirs was gathered and incorporated into the SWAT model. This was then simulated to obtain the uncalibrated data. SWAT produced unacceptable statistics for both crop yields and for stream flow using the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency equation and using percent bias. This suggests that the model must be calibrated to be of use in understanding both the current and future land use scenarios. Once the model is calibrated and validated, it can be used to simulate different biofuel cropping scenarios.

O conhecimento dos processos que constituem a equação do balanço hídrico do solo, ou simplesmente os componentes do balanço de água no solo em campo cultivado é importante, por exemplo, para detectar corretamente períodos de déficits hídricos durante o ciclo das culturas, para indicar a necessidade de irrigação e indicar perdas de nutrientes por lixiviação. Uma vez que estes componentes podem variar no espaço e no tempo, o estudo da estabilidade temporal da variabilidade espacial deles é essencial para determinar adequadamente os pontos de observação no campo (locais) para monitorar a água do solo com precisão e esforço amostral reduzido. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar os componentes do balanço da água (especificamente a variação de armazenamento de água do solo, drenagem interna e evapotranspiração real) em um Latossolo Vermelho-Amarelo cultivado com milho e analisar a variabilidade espacial e temporal por meio da técnica de estabilidade temporal. O estudo foi realizado em uma área do campus da ESALQ/USP, município de Piracicaba, Estado de São Paulo, Brasil (22 º 42 \'43,3 \"S; 47 º 37\' 10,4\" W, 546 m). O relevo da área experimental, que tem 1.500 m², é plano com 60 tubos de alumínio instalados para acesso há uma sonda de nêutrons e 120 tensiômetros com manômetro de mercúrio (60 na profundidade de 0,75 m e 60 na profundidade de 0,85 m). Isso nos permitiu estimar a densidade de fluxo do solo na profundidade do solo 0,80 m por meio da equação de Darcy-Buckingham e o armazenamento de água no solo na camada de 0,0-0,80 m ao longo do ciclo da cultura. A precipitação foi medida por meio de um pluviômetro instalado no centro da área experimental e a evaporação real foi considerada como desconhecida da equação do balanço hídrico. O estudo foi realizado dividindo o ciclo de cultivo em 13 períodos (P1 a P13). O uso da estatística descritiva foi útil para mostrar a variação do comportamento dos dados após a remoção dos pontos discrepantes em alguns períodos. Pelo uso da técnica da estabilidade temporal, foi possível concluir os locais amostrais (pontos) que melhor representaram a drenagem interna no campo foram os pontos 60 e 22 e para armazenamento da água do solo foram os pontos 52 e 49, de modo que em futuras determinações, os equipamentos devem ser instalados nestes locais. Os coeficientes de correlação de Spearman entre os períodos indicam estabilidade temporal para o armazenamento de água no solo, independentemente do teor de água do solo. Para drenagem interna e evapotranspiração real, os valores desses coeficientes foram geralmente baixos, indicando que não há estabilidade temporal. / The knowledge of the process that constitute the soil water balance equation or simply the soil water balance components in field cropping is important, for instance, to correctly detected water deficits periods during the crops cycle, to indicate the need for irrigation and to present nutrient losses by leaching. Since these components can vary in space and time, the study of temporal stability of spatial variability of them is essential to adequality determine the observation points (locations) in the field to monitor soil water with precision and reduced sampling effort. Thus, the objective of this work is to access soil water balance components (specifically soil water storage variation, internal drainage and actual evapotranspiration) in an Oxisol cropped with maize and to analyze spatial and temporal variability technique. The study was carried out in an area of ESALQ/USP campus, county of Piracicaba, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil (22º 42 43,3 S; 47º 37 10,4 W, 546 m). The relief of the experimental area, that has 1,500 m², is plane and is instrumental with 60 aluminium tubes to access a neutron probe and 120 mercury manometer tensiometers (60 at the soil depth of 0.75 m and 60 at the depth of 0.85 m). This enabled us to estimate the soil flux density at the 0.80 m soil depth by Darcy-Buckingham equation and the soil water storage in the 0.0-0.80 m layer along the crop cycle. Rainfall was measured by means of a rain gauge installed in the center of the experimental area and actual evaporation was evaluated as the unknown of the soil water balance equation. The study was carried out diving the crop cycle in 13 periods (P1 to P13). The use of descriptive statistics was useful to show the date behavior variation after outliers removal in some periods. By using the temporal stability technique, it was possible to include that represented locations (points) that better represented the internal drainage in the field were points 60 and 22 those for soil water storage were points 52 and 49, so that in future determinations, equipments should be installed in these locations. Spearman correlation coefficients between periods indicated temporal stability for soil water storage independently of the soil water content. For internal drainage and actual evapotranspiration, values of these coefficients were generally low, indicating no temporal stability.

Uma das tecnologias mais adotadas pelos produtores, principalmente os que têm suas lavouras situadas em região de cerrado, é a irrigação. No entanto, ainda não existe consenso sobre o manejo dessa irrigação, principalmente, com relação à quantidade de água a aplicar e na freqüência da irrigação. Objetivou-se com este trabalho verificar a influência da irrigação por gotejamento quando manejada o ano inteiro, e quando submetida à suspensão ou repouso durante os meses de julho e agosto, nas características produtivas (produtividade e renda) e de crescimento (altura e diâmetros da copa e do caule) e na qualidade física e da bebida de café. Além disso, foram testados modelos matemáticos com a finalidade de identificar aquele que melhor descreve o desempenho das plantas. Não obstante, foi efetuado o balanço hídrico climatológico diário da cultura de café e alguns índices de eficiência de uso de água. O experimento foi delineado em blocos casualizados com quatro repetições e onze tratamentos, sendo esses compostos por plantas irrigadas o ano inteiro e plantas submetidas à suspensão da irrigação durante os meses de julho e agosto, além da testemunha que não foi irrigada. As lâminas de irrigação foram obtidas com base na porcentagem da evaporação da água do tanque classe A de 40%, 80%, 120%, 160% e 200%. A coleta de dados começou em julho de 2003 e se estendeu por três anos, finalizando em maio de 2006. Conclui-se que a renda e a qualidade da bebida de café não foram influenciadas pelos tratamentos; a suspensão da irrigação durante os meses de julho e agosto melhorou sobremaneira a qualidade física do café, porém, a produtividade foi drasticamente diminuída; dentre os tratamentos submetidos ao repouso, a utilização de 80% da evaporação da água do tanque classe A promoveu a melhor combinação entre qualidade física dos grãos e produtividade; A lâmina de irrigação de 80% da evaporação da água do tanque classe A, manejada durante todo o ano, promoveu a maior produtividade média e o maior índice de eficiência no uso da água; os modelos de regressão polinomial de terceiro e segundo graus e raiz quadrada, representaram de forma satisfatória o desempenho produtivo da cultura de café em função da quantidade de água aplicada, porém o primeiro apresentou maior coeficiente de correlação; os piores resultados para altura das plantas foram aqueles proporcionados pelos tratamentos Testemunha, 40% da ECA irrigado o ano inteiro, e 40% e 120% da ECA com suspensão da irrigação em julho e agosto; para o diâmetro da copa e do caule, os piores resultados foram proporcionados pelos tratamentos Testemunha e 40% da ECA irrigado o ano inteiro; a maior eficiência no uso da água de irrigação foi conseguida pela lâmina de 40% da ECA com suspensão em julho e agosto, porém, houve diminuição na produtividade em 38,3%; o armazenamento efetivo da água do solo para o tratamento Testemunha sofreu muita variação ao longo dos anos avaliados, permanecendo abaixo de 30% no mês de setembro; nos tratamentos com suspensão na irrigação, o armazenamento efetivo da água no solo ficou abaixo de 50% no mês de agosto, por outro lado, naqueles onde a irrigação foi realizada o ano todo o armazenamento permaneceu acima de 90%, com exceção do tratamento 40%, onde o armazenamento chegou a 75% em maio de 2006. / One of the most often adopted technologies by farmers, especially those who grow their crops in the savannas, is irrigation. However, there is no consensus about this irrigation management, mostly in relation to the water volume and irrigation frequency. This study analyzed the effect of drip irrigation managed throughout the year, and when subject to suspension or fallowing in the months of July and August, on the production (yield and recovery), on growth (height and canopy and stem diameters) characteristics and on coffee physical and beverage qualities. Moreover, mathematical models were tested to identify those that best describe plant performance. Daily coffee climatological hydric balance and some efficacy indices on water use were also calculated. The experimental design was randomized blocks with four repetitions and eleven treatments, which were composed by plants irrigated throughout the year, and plants subjected to irrigation suspension in the months of July and August, besides a non irrigated control. Water irrigation blades were obtained based on evaporation of the class A pan at 40%, 80%, 120%, 160% and 200%. Data collection started on July 2003 and extended for three years, ending on May 2006. It was concluded that recovery and coffee beverage quality were not affected by the treatments; suspending irrigation in July and August improved greatly coffee physical quality; however, yield decreased drastically; among the treatments subjected to fallowing, the one at 80% evaporation of class A pan, gave the best combination between cherry physical quality and yield; the irrigation blade of 80% evaporation of class A pan, managed throughout the year, gave the best average yield and the greatest water use efficacy index; the polynomial regression model of third and second degrees and the square root, represented well the yield performance of coffee as a function of water amount applied; however, the first one presented a greater correlation coefficient; the worst results of plant height were those given by the treatments non irrigated control, 40% ECA irrigated throughout the year and 40% and 120% ECA with irrigation fallowing in July and August; the worst results for canopy and stem diameters were given by the treatments non irrigated control and 40% ECA irrigated throughout the year; the greatest irrigation water use efficacy was obtained with the blade of 40% ECA with fallowing in July and August; however, there was a 38.3% decrease in yield; effective water holding in the soil for the non irrigated control varied greatly throughout the evaluation years, remaining below 30% in September; in the treatments with irrigation fallowing, effective water holding remained below 50 in August, in contrast, in those with irrigation throughout the year, water holding remained above 90% with the exception of the treatment with 40% ECA, where water holding reached 75% in May 2006.

O presente trabalho teve por objetivo: a) avaliar os processos do balanço de água no solo com culturas de milho sob sistema plantio direto e, adubada com diferentes doses de nitrogênio, em sucessão a plantas de cobertura do solo, e b) verificar possíveis alterações de algumas propriedades físico-hídricas do solo neste tipo de prática de manejo. O experimento foi conduzido em uma área experimental da ESALQ-USP, município de Piracicaba-SP. Segundo a classificação internacional de Köppen, o clima da região é do tipo Cwa, denominado "tropical de altitude". O solo do local é do tipo Latossolo Vermelho Amarelo. O delineamento experimental foi o de blocos casualizados com 4 repetições. Os tratamentos constaram de uma testemunha e de três doses de nitrogênio (60, 120 e 180 kg ha-1) na forma de sulfato de amônio, sendo que 30 kg ha-1 de N foram aplicados na semeadura e o restante em cobertura. A área da parcela experimental foi de 36 m2 (5,0 x 7,2 m), observando-se a declividade do terreno. A aveia preta foi semeada manualmente em julho de 2004 e o tremoço branco em junho de 2005, o milho em dezembro de 2004 e novembro de 2005, após manejo das plantas de cobertura do solo. No que diz respeito ao balanço de água o solo foram medidos a precipitação pluvial (P), o deflúvio superficial (R), a drenagem interna (D) (ou ascensão capilar) na profundidade de 0,8 m e a variação da armazenagem (Δh) na camada de solo de 0,0-0,80 m; a evapotranspiração real (ET) foi estimada como a incógnita na equação do balanço. Ainda foi avaliada a eficiência do uso da água (EUA) pela cultura do milho, bem como suas características agronômicas e produção de matéria seca (MS) das plantas de cobertura do solo. As propriedades físico-hídricas do solo avaliadas para atender o segundo objetivo do trabalho foram: porosidade total, macro e microporosidade do solo e densidade do solo. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que: quanto aos parâmetros do balanço de água, de forma geral, verificou-se que as doses de N os alteraram, uma vez que nos tratamentos com aplicação de N, o solo se encontrou com uma Δh relativamente menor que o tratamento sem N, refletindo em menor valor de D nesses tratamentos, sendo traduzido em maior absorção de água pelas plantas, bem como maior EUA e maior rendimento de grãos. Quanto às propriedades físico-hídricas do solo, percebeu-se tendências de mudança, principalmente no que se refere à macro e microporosidade do solo, condicionadas pela alteração estrutural do solo. Entretanto, estas mudanças ocorrem paulatinamente, com o tempo e com a aplicação de N, sendo interessante um estudo em longo prazo no SPD, para se obter resultados mais significativos e conclusivos quanto a essa prática de manejo na região. / The objective of this work was: a) to evaluate the processes of the water balance in the soil with maize plants, under no tillage system (NTS) and different nitrogen levels, in succession to cover crops; b) to verify possible alterations of some soil physico-hydric properties due to the no tillage system practice. The experiment was carried out in Piracicaba, SP, Brazil on a Typic Hapludox, locally called Yellow Red Latosol. According to Köppen's classification, the region climate is of Cwa type, tropical highland. The experimental design was of randomized blocks with four replicates. The treatments consisted of one control and three nitrogen levels (60, 120 and 180 kg ha-1 of N) as ammonium sulphate, 30 kg ha-1 of N being applied in the sowing and the remain in covering. The area of experimental plot was 36 m2 (5.0 x 7.2 m), observing the land slope. Avena strigosa was sown manually in July 2004 and Luppinus albus in June 2005, the maize in November 2004 and 2005, after handling of the cover crops. In relation to the soil water balance, it was evaluated the precipitation (P), the runoff (R), the internal drainage (D) (or capillary rise) at the 0.80 m of depth, soil water storage variation (Δh) at the 0.0-0.80 m layer and the evapotranspiration (ET). The latter, was considered as unknown in the water balance equation. The maize WUE was also calculated, as well as yield components and dry matter cover crops. The soil physico-hydric properties evaluated were: total porosity, macroporosity, microporosity and dry bulk density. The results showed that: for the soil water balance, generally, the N levels changed the equation parameters. As a result, the treatments with N application had lower Δh than the treatment without N, implying in a lower D in these treatments and leading to a higherwater absortion by plants, as well as WUE and yield grain. The soil physico-hydric properties have showed trends of changing, mainly for macro and microporosity, due to the soil structural change. However, these alterations, occur slowly, with the time and the N application. Therefore, it is necessary to study the long-term NTS to have significant and conclusive results for this soil management in this region.

O entendimento dos processos hídricos do solo, tais como infiltração, drenagem, e disponibilidade de água para as plantas, necessita do conhecimento da relação entre o conteúdo de água no solo e o potencial matricial, representado pela curva de retenção de água no solo (CRA). No entanto, a determinação da CRA demanda tempo e possui um custo relativo alto. Uma alternativa é sua determinação através de modelos que estimam a CRA a partir de alguns atributos de fácil determinação, chamados funções de pedotransferência (FPT). A finalidade desse trabalho foi quantificar os efeitos da mudança do uso do solo sobre os atributos físicos e hídricos no Sudeste do Estado do Pará. Utilizou-se o banco de dados do Projeto Serviços ecossistêmicos e sustentabilidade das paisagens agrosilvipastoris da Amazônia Oriental, para obter dados de textura (areia, silte e argila), densidade do solo (Ds), carbono orgânico (CO), pH, capacidade de troca de cátions (CTC) e, as vezes, as CRA. Primeiramente, foram avaliadas 16 FPT existentes na literatura; 8 FPT paramétricas, que estimam os parâmetros empíricos do modelo de van Genuchten e 8 FPT pontuais, que estimam a umidade em potenciais específicos de água no solo. Posteriormente, buscando maior capacidade preditiva das FPT, através da técnica de regressão múltipla, desenvolveu-se uma FPT utilizando os atributos do solo mensurados no projeto. As melhores FPT foram utilizadas para estimar os parâmetros do modelo de van Genuchten nos sítios onde não havia CRA medida. Através desta extrapolação, avaliou-se o efeito da mudança de uso do solo sobre a distribuição dos tamanhos de poros, utilizando-se análise de componentes principais (ACP). Dentre as FPT testadas, as que apresentaram melhor resultado foram as FPT propostas por Tomasella et al. (2000), no entanto, a avaliação de desempenho realizada mostrou resultados não satisfatórios. Por outro lado, os resultados apresentados pela FPT desenvolvida neste trabalho alcançaram boa capacidade preditiva dos parâmetros empíricos do modelo de van Genuchten (1980). A ACP possibilitou identificar uma grande variabilidade entre os atributos medidos e estimados dos solos. Devido a esta variabilidade, não foram detectadas diferenças marcantes nos atributos dos solos em função do uso. Para isso, faz-se necessário estudos complementares, aumentando a escala e/ou classes de solo. / The understanding of soil water attributes, such as infiltration, drainage, solute movement and water availability for plants, needs the knowledge of the relationship between water content and soil matric potential, represented by the soil water retention curve (SWRC). However, the determination of the SWRC demands considerable time and has a relatively high cost. An alternative is to model its determination using pedotransfer functions (PTF) that calculate the SWRC parameters using easily obtainable soil attributes. The aim of this study was to use PTF to quantify the effects of changing land use on soil hydro-physical attributes at three locations in southern Pará. The database obtained in the project \"Ecosystem services and sustainable agroforestry landscapes in Eastern Amazonia\" was used in order to obtain soil texture data (sand, silt and clay), bulk density (Bd), organic carbon (OC), pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC) and the SWRC. First, 16 PTF found in the literature were evaluated (8 estimating the empirical parameters of the van Genuchten (1980) model and 8 to estimate soil moisture at specific matric potentials). Later, aiming at a greater predictive ability, a PTF was developed using the technique of multiple regression and the soil attributes determined in the project. The best PTF were used to estimate the model parameters of van Genuchten (1980) at the locations where there was no SWRC data. These results were used to determine the changes in pore distribution due to land use using principal component analysis (PCA). These changes were also associated with changes in content of OC and Bd using multivariate analysis. Of the FPT found in the literature the one that showed the best performance was the FPT developed by Tomasella et al. (2000), however, the evaluation performed showed poor results when the data was extrapolated to the locations where no SWRC were determined. The results presented by the FPT developed in this work showed a better efficiency in determining the SWRC in the locations that did not have this information. The PCA analysis performed on this data identified a large variability among the measured and estimated soil attributes. Because of this variability, there were no marked differences in soil attributes depending on land use. For this, more detailed studies are necessary at a increasing scale and/or at the soil class level.