11 Facts About Water potential

Water potential is the potential energy of water per unit volume relative to pure water in reference conditions.

The concept of water potential has proved useful in understanding and computing water movement within plants, animals, and soil.

Water potential is typically expressed in potential energy per unit volume and very often is represented by the Greek letter ?.

Pressure potential is based on mechanical pressure and is an important component of the total water potential within plant cells.

The osmotic Water potential is made possible due to the presence of both inorganic and organic solutes in the soil solution.

Related searches

Since regions of soil are usually not divided by a semipermeable membrane, the osmotic potential typically has a negligible influence on the mass movement of water in soils.

The magnitude of matrix Water potential depends on the distances between solid particles—the width of the menisci —and the chemical composition of the solid matrix.

In many cases, the absolute value of matrix potential can be relatively large in comparison to the other components of water potential discussed above.

Matrix potential markedly reduces the energy state of water near particle surfaces.

The matrix potential is always negative because the water attracted by the soil matrix has an energy state lower than that of pure water.

Matrix potential only occurs in unsaturated soil above the water table.