Comparison of class and continuous pedotransfer functions to generate soil hydraulic characteristics

Class pedotransfer functions (PTF) and continuous PTFs were used to generate soil hydraulic characteristics. Both approaches were used to predict the soil physical input data to calculate five functional aspects of soil behaviour: number of workable days, number of days with adequate soil aeration, elapsed time until 10% breakthrough of chloride, amount of cadmium leached after one year, and amount of Isoproturon leached after one year. When to prefer which approach was ambiguous and depended on the functional aspect under consideration. When differences are not significant or irrelevant in practice, the cheaper and easier to use class-PTF approach is preferred to the continuous-PTF approach.