For saturated flow the equivalent macroscopic hydraulic conductivity is equal to simple arithmetic average of all individual saturated hydraulic conductivities for horizontally heterogeneous (parallel) media and harmonic average of all individual saturated hydraulic conductivity for vertically heterogeneous (layered) media. In this study, we investigate the appropriateness of using the same simple arithmetic and harmonic averages of hydraulic conductivity for unsaturated flows horizontal and perpendicular to the heterogeneous soil columns or layers under the steady state flow conditions involving a groundwater table. The relative error of calculated flux against the actual average flux of the heterogeneous soils, using various averaged hydraulic conductivity functions is also assessed. While arithmetic mean of hydraulic conductivity function performs reasonable well in simulating the actual average flux for the horizontally heterogeneous columns, the harmonic mean of hydraulic conductivity function introduces quite large error in predicting the actual flux for the vertically heterogeneous soil layers, especially for the highly heterogeneous soils.