Soil Typical moisture content Range

[abualamal]

Dears
Please specify the typical ranges of natural moisture content of soil types with the division from dry to moist to wet to saturated.
Please specify the reference standard/handbook or link.
Thanks

 

[dik]

It varies tremendously... the type of soils, whether cohesive or non-cohesive and the degree of plasticity for cohesive soils. It also varies substantially depending on the type of 'rock' they came from... too many variables... can range from about 3% to a 'whole bunch'.

So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[GeoPaveTraffic]

As dik said, completely depends on the soil. Therefore to answer your question:

Dry: 0 to 50%
Moist: 5 to 100%
Saturated: 10% to 1000%

Good luck.

 

[MotorCity]

Add ground water table elevation and precipitation intensity and frequency to the list of factors

 

[GeoEnvGuy]

Terzaghi says moisture is described as below

Coduto says moisture is described as per below

ASTM says

So if your looking for a consistent descriptor and typical range good luck

 

[geotechguy1]

In New Zealand there are soils with natural moisture contents of 200% but high shear strength and stiffness, but if you oven dry them they completely lose the ability to hold a moisture content over 30-40% (and also cannot be re-compacted to as high of a shear strength as if you just left it at 200% and did best effort compaction).

It depends! You need a Geotech who has expertise in your local area and soils to have a chance of being approximately right about the answer to this question.