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Transect study on solute transport in a macroporous soil

Abstract:

Solute transport experiments using a non-reactive tracer were conducted on short, undisturbed, saturated columns of a sandy loam soil. All columns, 20 cm in diameter and 20 cm long, were collected along a transect of 35 m. Most of the soil columns had pre-existing macropores. The columns were leached at a steady flow-rate under ponding conditions. The resulting breakthrough curves (BTCs) showed a large heterogeneity. Several of the BTCs displayed early breakthrough and long tailing. All the data were interpreted in terms of dimensional time moments, the classical convection-dispersion equation (CDE) and the mobile-immobile transport model (MIM). Experimental time moments were found to vary significantly among the different BTCs. Analysis of the time moments also revealed that the variance of the field-scale BTC was several times larger than the average of the local-scale variance. The pore water velocity v and dispersion coefficient D were obtained by fitting the CDE to the local-scale BTCs, resulting in an average dispersivity of 7·4 cm. Frequency distributions for the CDE parameters v and D were equally well described by a normal or log-normal probability density function (pdf). When a log-normal pdf for D is considered, the variance of the loge transformed D values (σ2lnD) was found to be 2·1. For the MIM model, two additional parameters were fitted: the fraction of mobile water, θm/θ, and the first-order mass transfer coefficient, α. The MIM was more successful in describing the data than the CDE transport model. For the MIM model, the average dispersivity was about 2cm. The MIM parameters v, D and θm/θ were best described by a log-normal pdf rather than a normal pdf. Only the parameter α was better described by a normal pdf. Mobile water fractions, θm/θ ranged from 0·01 to 0·98, with a mean of 0·43 (based on a log-normal pdf). When the CDE and MIM were applied to the data, the fitted pore water velocities, v, compared favourably with the effective pore water velocities, veff, obtained from moment analysis.