Dispersivity variability in an Atlantic Coastal Plain sandy loam
Abstract
In recent years,negative implications associated with groundwater contamination have increased the efforts of researchers studying solute transport through the vadose zone as well as the quality of unsaturated soils near the ground surface. By necessity, the tools with which solute movement and water flow through unsaturated soils are often evaluated take place in the lab, and are then transferred to the field scale. One of the key parameters in estimating solute movement in soils is dispersivity. In an effort to evaluate whether dispersivity is a measureable parameter or a fitting factor in estimating solute movement, large intact cores and small cores were taken from an Atlantic Coastal Plain sandy loam soil. Displacement experiments were used to determine how dispersivity varies according to travel distance in a sandy loam soil. Multiple experiments were conducted at varying soil mosture contents to ascertain whether dispersivity was a repeatable measurement. Using conservative and non-conservative tracers, we evaluated residence times to determine the presence of multiple flow regimes within the soils.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUFM.H11F1323S
- Keywords:
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- 1839 Hydrologic scaling;
- 1865 Soils (0486);
- 1866 Soil moisture;
- 1875 Vadose zone