Abstract:Soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) is an important parameter affecting soil hydrological process, which reflects soil infiltration and water holding capacity. In order to explore spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of Ks, we used the grid method (2 km×2 km), 27 samples of different landscape types were arranged in the desert-oasis ecotone of the middle reaches of the Heihe River. Ks was determined by Hood-IL 2700 infitrometer and soil physicochemical properties of 0-30 cm soil depth were obtained. Spatial distribution characteristics of Ks and its influencing factors were analyzed by classical statistics and geostatistics, and pedo-transfer functions were constructed. The results showed that:(1) The variation coefficient of Ks was 1.21, which belonged to strong variation. Ks had significant negative correlations with soil water content, soil organic carbon, clay and silt, while had significant positive correlations with bulk density and sand. (2) The best fitting model of semi-variable function of soil water content was exponential model, and those of bulk density and clay were spherical models. The optimum sampling distance of bulk density, water content and clay were 0.38~0.77, 1.86~3.72 and 1.41~2.83 km. The constructed pedo-transfer function was log Ks=-2.914+2.772ρb-0.09SW+0.068clay. Bulk density, soil water content and clay could be used as predictive variables that could simulate the spatial distribution of Ks in the desert-oasis ecotone. This study could provide data support for simulating soil water movement and simulation in desert-oasis ecotone.