Impact of Pedogenetic Processes on Pore System Development and Consequently on Soil Hydraulic Properties

Soil micromorphological properties were studied on soil thin sections to define configuration of soil porous system that is reflected in a shape of soil hydraulic properties. The micromorphological study of soil porous systems discovered multimodality of pore-size distributions and hierarchical pore configuration. Some pore systems were affected by clay coatings. The soil water retention curves also frequently display multimodality. The single-porosity and dual-permeability models in HYDRUS-1D (Šimůnek et al., 2003, 2005) were applied for description of soil hydraulic properties and soil water flow. Results showed a very important impact of multimodality of soil porous systems and effect of clay coatings on water flow process in soil

Fly-ash mobility in sandy material

Fly-ash migration in three sands of various particle size distributions and consequently various porosities was studied in the laboratory. The fly-ash was applied on the top of all sands packed in plastic cylinders followed by pulse infiltrations. Water regime was monitored using the soil water content sensors SM200 and micro-tensometers T5. Kappameter SM400 was used to monitor migration of ferrimagnetic particles-tracers presented in the fly-ash. Undisturbed samples of sands polluted by fly-ash were taken at the end of the experiments to study final fly-ash distribution in section planes and thin sections of sandy material

Using the dye tracer for visualization of preferential flow in macro- and micro-scale

Study is focused on the visualization of the preferential flow in different soil types and their horizons using the dye tracer experiment. The field ponding dye infiltration experiments were performed in two soil types: Haplic Luvisol and Haplic Cambisol. In addition, the thin soil section were made and micromoprphological images were used to study soil aggregate structure and dye distribution in microscale. Images of the dye patterns (taken in macro- and micro-scales) documented very different nature of the preferential flow in different soil types and also within the soil profiles

Modeling the Translocation and Transformation of Chemicals in the Soil-Plant Continuum: A Dynamic Plant Uptake Module for the HYDRUS Model

Food contamination is responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide every year. Plants represent the most common pathway for chemicals into the human and animal food chain. Although existing dynamic plant uptake models for chemicals are crucial for the development of reliable mitigation strategies for food pollution, they nevertheless simplify the description of physicochemical processes in soil and plants, mass transfer processes between soil and plants and in plants, and transformation in plants. To fill this scientific gap, we couple a widely used hydrological model (HYDRUS) with a multicompartment dynamic plant uptake model, which accounts for differentiated multiple metabolization pathways in plant's tissues. The developed model is validated first theoretically and then experimentally against measured data from an experiment on the translocation and transformation of carbamazepine in three vegetables. The analysis is further enriched by performing a global sensitivity analysis on the soil-plant model to identify factors driving the compound's accumulation in plants' shoots, as well as to elucidate the role and the importance of soil hydraulic properties on the plant uptake process. Results of the multilevel numerical analysis emphasize the model's flexibility and demonstrate its ability to accurately reproduce physicochemical processes involved in the dynamic plant uptake of chemicals from contaminated soils

Modeling the Translocation and Transformation of Chemicals in the Soil-Plant Continuum: A Dynamic Plant Uptake Module for the HYDRUS Model

Food contamination is responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide every year. Plants represent the most common pathway for chemicals into the human and animal food chain. Although existing dynamic plant uptake models for chemicals are crucial for the development of reliable mitigation strategies for food pollution, they nevertheless simplify the description of physicochemical processes in soil and plants, mass transfer processes between soil and plants and in plants, and transformation in plants. To fill this scientific gap, we couple a widely used hydrological model (HYDRUS) with a multicompartment dynamic plant uptake model, which accounts for differentiated multiple metabolization pathways in plant's tissues. The developed model is validated first theoretically and then experimentally against measured data from an experiment on the translocation and transformation of carbamazepine in three vegetables. The analysis is further enriched by performing a global sensitivity analysis on the soil-plant model to identify factors driving the compound's accumulation in plants' shoots, as well as to elucidate the role and the importance of soil hydraulic properties on the plant uptake process. Results of the multilevel numerical analysis emphasize the model's flexibility and demonstrate its ability to accurately reproduce physicochemical processes involved in the dynamic plant uptake of chemicals from contaminated soils