Soil solution samplers have certain inadequacies that limit their range of
possible applications. Passive Capillary Samplers (PCAPS), which apply suction to the
soil pore-water via a fiber glass wick, have shown promising results in preliminary
experiments in regard to collection efficiency of water and of bromide tracers. The
objectives of...
Groundwater contamination on irrigated land is of concern in this nation
and around the world. In order to reduce the potential of groundwater
contamination by agricultural practices such as irrigation, fertilizer and pesticide
application, vadose-zone monitoring and sampling are needed. The main
objective of this study was to evaluate impacts...
Assessment of the environmental impacts of an agricultural production system
requires information on both soil water quality and solute flux. Passive Capillary Samplers
(PCAPS), which sample water from the vadose zone using fiber glass wicks, have shown
potential to provide both flux and solute concentration in unsaturated zone sampling but...
Vertisols and other vertic-intergrade soils are found all over the globe, including many agricultural and urban areas. These soils are characterized by their cyclical shrinking and swelling behaviors, where bulk density and porosity distribution both vary as functions of time and/or soil moisture. In turn, alterations in physical soil parameters...
The contamination of ground water resources represents a serious
problem and a prominent threat to the health of our society. This study
focuses on the leaching of inorganic anions as a function of agricultural
practices under natural field conditions. In order to enhance the
understanding of such leaching processes, this...
The agricultural production of peppermint has been shown to contribute significant quantities of nitrate-nitrogen to groundwater recharge. In an effort to provide new tools for increasing nitrogen efficiency within peppermint production, three research questions were proposed: i) How should plant tissue samples be collected to achieve the greatest precision when...
A novel technique was developed for studying gas phase flow in unsaturated porous media. Carbon dioxide was pumped through a back-lit chamber packed with translucent sand which was variably saturated with water containing the pH indicator dye methyl red. As the carbon dioxide dissolved in the pore water, lowering the...
Over the last two decades, urban stormwater management has grown to include green infrastructure, such as bioswales. These systems were primarily designed to mitigate hydraulic peaking during rainstorms but were also found to remove particulate and dissolved contaminants. However, little is known about the fate of these particulate contaminants after...
Infiltration of highly concentrated solutions into unsaturated sand is suspected to be affected by the liquid-gas interfacial tension between the resident water and that of the infiltrating solution. The wetting of non-porous solid surfaces by liquids is commonly quantified by contact angle measurements. However, it is well known that wettability...