Elsevier

Pedosphere

Volume 28, Issue 3, June 2018, Pages 443-450
Pedosphere

A Comparison of Five Different Techniques to Determine Hydraulic Conductivity of a Riparian Soil in North Bavaria, Germany

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(17)60385-0Get rights and content

Abstract

Soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) is a predominant input factor when forecasting the vertical transport of contaminants through the soil or when estimating the flood retention capacity of the soil. Displacement of contaminants in the soil over extended periods of time can be attributed mainly to matrix flow, whereas flow through macropores becomes significant under untypically wet conditions, e.g., during spills or rain storms. To obtain matrix conductivities for a soil, the effects of macropores should be excluded. However, the Ks values of a soil profile are unlikely to be reflected solely by pedotransfer tables based on soil texture and bulk density. In this study, we examined five different methods (pedotransfer table, soil core, borehole permeameter, particle-size distribution curve, and instantaneous profile) to determine Ks values for a mercury-contaminated riparian soil for subsequent simulation of long-term mercury displacement toward groundwater. We found that the determined Ks values increased in the following order: borehole permeameter < particle-size distribution curve < pedotransfer table < instantaneous profile < soil core. The instantaneous profile method yielded Ks values of matrix flow, which additionally reflected the structure-related features of Ks values as provided by the soil core method. Despite being labor intensive and requiring expensive field sensors, the instantaneous profile method may provide the best representative in-situ Ks values for the studied site.

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      The disk- and the hood-infiltrometer apply preferably for the uppermost topsoil or require laborious soil pit preparation (Buczko et al., 2003). In contrast, the borehole permeameter is measuring the field-saturated hydraulic conductivity (Kfs-value) of the surrounding soil from a small borehole (Amoozegar, 1989), which can be easily extended downward and thus allows measurements also in greater soil depths (Hangen and Vieten, 2018). The Kfs-value, the hydraulic conductivity of a field-saturated soil, does not necessarily comprise the entire macropore region (Jury and Horton, 2004) and may additionally be decreased by enclosed air during the infiltration process (Basile et al., 2003; Morbidelli et al., 2017).

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      Under saturated conditions, this parameter is referred to as saturated hydraulic conductivity, Ks (also denoted as Ksat), and can be taken as a constant at any given time, location, and direction within the soil. The most convenient and widely used procedure for in situ measurement of Ks of the vadose zone from the soil surface to depths exceeding a few meters is the constant head well permeameter (also known as borehole permeameter) method (Amoozegar and Wilson, 1999; Reynolds and Elrick, 2002; Braud et al., 2017; Hangen and Vieten, 2018; Libohova et al., 2018). Originally, the procedure called for excavation of a relatively large hole (around 30 cm in diameter), required a significant volume of water (>200 L), and took a long time (>10 h) to complete a test (Amoozegar and Warrick, 1986; Stephens et al., 1987; USBR, 1990).

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