Water Repellency Effects on Water Retention in Heat Pre-treated Volcanic Ash Soil
Abstract
Water repellency (WR) in soil is a common phenomenon after forest fires all over the world. It can induce hydrological problems such as preferential flow in soils and reduced water infiltration rate which in turn can lead to surface runoff and erosion. In this study, we examined the hydrophobicity for pre-heated volcanic ash soil samples with different temperatures between 60 and 200oC and non pre-heated samples (20oC) from a single surface soil profile down to 25 cm depth. Moreover, the pre-heated samples were used to investigate the effects of pre-heat treatment and hydrophobic severity on soil-water retention properties. We first assessed the degree of water repellency for pre-heated samples by the Water Droplet Penetration Time test and Molarity of Ethanol Droplet test and categorized the water repellency into four different classes (extremely, severely, strongly and non-WR) as proposed by Bisdom et al. (1993). The depth profiles of soil organic carbon (SOC) content for the pre-heated samples were also measured. Results showed the categorized WR classes changed depending on pre-heated temperatures and residual SOC contents. For top surface soil with 0-5cm depth, pre-heated samples at 105, 125, 150 and 175oC exhibited extremely WR, pre-heated samples at 60oC exhibited severely WR, non pre-heated samples (20oC) exhibited strongly WR, and pre-heated samples at 200oC exhibited non-WR. Moreover, the threshold value of SOC above which WR occurs was found to be around 7.4% based on the measured WR classes and SOC profiles. The water supply/drainage controlled hanging column setup equipped with a newly-developed mini tensiometer-TDR coil probe (5 cm in length and 0.5 cm in diameter) was used to measure wetting and drying processes of the soil-water retention curves (SWRCs) for the pre-heated samples. Results showed that the SWRCs on the wetting process were highly affected by the degree of water repellency. Clear water-entry pressures (hwe) were observed in the SWRCs for the preheated samples categorized as extremely and severely WR and the measured hwe values were between -1.5 and 2 cm H2O.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.H11E0864C
- Keywords:
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- 1838 HYDROLOGY / Infiltration