ISO 17313:2004 is applicable to undisturbed or compacted specimens that have a hydraulic conductivity between 1 x 10^-5 m/s (1 x 10^-3 cm/s) and 1 x 10^-11 m/s (1 x 10^-9 cm/s). Typical soil types falling in this category are clay, clay and sand tills, silt, peat, mud, etc.

In order to limit consolidation influences during testing, this procedure is applicable only to disturbed granular soils containing not more than 10 % soil passing a 75-micrometre sieve.

ISO 17312:2005 is applicable to the measurement of hydraulic conductivity of compacted samples of sands and gravels containing little or no silt, where flow along the rigid wall of the permeameter has no practical implications on the test results. ISO 17312:2005 is not applicable to silt and clay, where seepage/flow at the boundaries is not acceptable.

L'ISO 16586:2003 est applicable à tous les types de sol non gonflant et sans retrait. Elle est utilisée comme méthode de référence (par exemple pour l'étalonnage de méthodes indirectes pour la détermination de la teneur en eau).

ISO 15709:2002 is applicable only to standards on soil physical investigations of the unsaturated zone (including swelling soils) elaborated within ISO/TC 190. ISO 15709:2002 specifically excludes macropore flow.

ISO 15175:2004 is applicable to the evaluation of the impact of contaminants on groundwater in relation to drinking water quality, irrigation water quality, industrial use and natural base flow.

This document applies only to measurements of the drying or desorption curve.

Four methods are described to cover the complete range of soil water pressures as follows:

a) method using sand, kaolin or ceramic suction tables for determination of matric pressures from 0 kPa to -50 kPa;

b) method using a porous plate and burette apparatus for determination of matric pressures from 0 kPa to -20 kPa;

c) method using a pressurized gas and a pressure plate extractor for determination of matric pressures from -5 kPa to -1 500 kPa;

d) method using a pressurized gas and pressure membrane cells for determination of matric pressures from -33 kPa to -1 500 kPa.

Guidelines are given to select the most suitable method in a particular case.

The range of the determination of the conductivity depends on the soil type. It lies between matric heads of approximately -50 cm and -700 cm.

The range of the determination of the water-retention characteristic lies between matric heads of approximately 0 cm and -800 cm.