Cover image of: Miroslav Kutilek; Donald R. Nielsen - Soil Hydrology

Miroslav Kutilek; Donald R. Nielsen:

Soil Hydrology

1994. 370 pages, 168 figures, 5 tables, Catena ISBN 978-3-923381-26-5, US-ISBN 978-1-59326-258-7, 17x24cm, 720 g
Language: English

(GeoEcology textbook)

ISBN 978-3-510-65387-4, paperback, price: 30.00 €

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Keywords

introduction • hydrological events • physics • agronomy • water • ecology • environment

Contents

Synopsis top ↑

The authors have intended to present an introduction to the physical interpretation of phenomena which govern hydrological events related to soil or the upper most mantle of the earth's crust. The text is based upon our teaching and research experience. The book can serve either as the first reading for future specialists in soil physics or soil hydrology. Or, it can be a source of basic information on soil hydrology for specialists in other branches, e.g. in agronomy, ecology, environmental protection, forestry, geomorphology, hydrologic science, meteorology and water management. They assume that those specialists do not intend to conduct research in soil hydrology but may wish to successfully use its tools in their own academic domains.
The first requirement of such a book is its simplicity without neglecting all of the complexity of soils and their porous systems as they react with the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. With mathematical derivations in the majority of cases being reduced to the level of calculus, the authors were obliged in some instances to deviate from the usually rigorous derivations. However, if the reader has an aversion to mathematics, basic information on any particular problem can be gained even without going into the details of its mathematical development.
According to our experience, the level of information presented in this book is adequate for a qualified use of programs and models in soil hydrology. If the reader does not intend to passively accept ready-made software, and has intentions of being more academically creative, we recommend more detailed study of information readily available in related journals and other publications.
Physical interpretation and mathematical formulation of such complex events as rain infiltration or evapotranspiration cannot be done without a certain degree of simplification. The authors emphasize here that this simplification leads only to an approximation to reality. Similar simplifying approaches can be applied in neighboring branches of investigation. By removing some simplifying assumptions, a more exact but usually a more complicated but still approximate solution of the soil hydrological problem is formulated.
Inasmuch as the text of this book is purposely not a monograph, the references cited are the subjective selections from the voluminous literature. Indeed, many titles to which there is no reference may be of the same importance as the selected references for a given problem . The same consideration applies to the theories presented in the text - not all are explained nor quoted in this book. Even if the authors had tried to subordinate their subjective choice to criteria based upon further development and broad applicability, they are aware of the fact that they would have neglected some which will eventually be extended to fundamental contributions in the future. Those contributions are the "surprises” that make research and scientific investigation so attractive to many creative brains.

Errata sheet top ↑

Unfortunately, some errors have made it into the printed version. Please download the corresponding Errata sheet here.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

Table of Contents top ↑

Preface
1 Soils in Hydrology 1
1.1 Soils 1
1.1.1 Soil Genesis 2
1.1.2 Soil Classification 4
1.1.2.1 FAO Soil Classification 5
1.1.2.2 U.S. Soil Taxonomy 9
1.1.3 Soil Mapping 10
1.2 Concepts of Soil Hydrology 13
2 Soil Porous System 16
2.1 Soil Porosity 16
2.2 Classification of Pores 20
2.3 Methods of Porosity Measurement 21
2.4 Soil Porous Systems 22
2.5 Soil Specific Surface 25
Problems 27
3 Soil Water 28
3.1 Soil Water Content 28
3.2 Measurement of Soil Water Content 30
3.2.1 Gravimetric Method 31
3.2.2 Electrical Resistance Method 32
3.2.3 Capacitance Methods 33
3.2.4 Gamma Radiation Methods 37
3.2.5 Neutron Method 39
3.2.6 Remote Sensing 43
Problems 44
4 Soil Water Hydrostatics 45
4.1 Interface Phenomena 45
4.1.1 Adsorption of Water Vapor 46
4.1.2 Capillarity 49
4.1.3 Swelling 55
4.2 Soil Water Potential 58
4.2.1 Concepts of Soil Water Potential 58
4.2.2 Units of the Potential 62
4.2.3 Measuring Techniques 62
4.2.3.1 Piezometers and Tensiometers 62
4.2.3.2 Psychrometers 67
4.2.3.3 Heat Dissipation Method 69
4.2.4 Potential in Swelling Soils 69
4.3 Soil Water Retention Curve 70
4.3.1 Construction of the Soil Water Retention Curve 73
4.3.2 Analysis of Soil Water Retention Curves 76
4.3.3 Models of Soil Water Retention Curves 79 Problems 85
5 Hydrodynamics of Soil Water 87
5.1 Basic Concepts 87
5.2 Saturated Flow 88
5.2.1 Darcy's Equation 88
5.2.2 Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity 91
5.2.3. Darcian and Non-Darcian Flow 97
5.2.4 Measuring 98
5.3 Unsaturated Flow in Rigid Soils 102
5.3.1 Darcy-Buckingham Equation 102
5.3.2 Unsaturated Hydraulic Conductivity 104
5.3.3 Richard's Equation 112
5.3.4 Soil Water Diffusivity 116
5.3.5 Diffusion of Water Vapor 118
5.4 Two Phase Flow 120
5.5 Flow in Non-rigid (Swelling) Soils 123
5.6 Non-Isothermal Flow 124
5.6.1 Coupled Processes 125
5.6.2 Flow in Non-iso thermal Conditions 125
5.6.3 Flow at Temperature T < 0°C 126 Problems 129
6 Elementary Soil Hydrologic Processes 130
6.1 Principles of Solutions 130
6.2 Infiltration 133
6.2.1 Steady Infiltration 134
6.2.1.1 Homogeneous Soil Profile 135
6.2.1.2 Layered Soil Profiles 136
6.2.2 Unsteady Infiltration, Dirichlet's Boundary Condition (DBC) 140
6.2.2.1 Characteristics of Infiltration 142
6.2.2.2 Analytical and Semi-Analytical Procedures 144
6.2.2.3 Approximate Solutions 153
6.2.2.4 Empirical Equations 158
6.2.3 Unsteady Infiltration, Neuman's Boundary Condition (NBC) 159
6.2.3.1 Description of the Process 159
6.2.3.2 Approximate Solutions 161
6.2.3.3 Analytical Solutions 165
6.2.4 Field Infiltration 166
6.2.4.1 Soil Sealing and Crusting 166
6.2.4.2 Infiltration into Crust- and Seal-Topped Soils 168
6.2.4.3 Infiltration into Layered Soils 171
6.2.4.4 Further Rainfall Infiltration Effects 173
6.2.5 Infiltration into Seasonally Frozen Soils 174
6.3 Soil Water Redistribution and Drainage After Infiltration 176
6.3.1 Soil Water Redistribution after Infiltration 176
6.3.2 Field Capacity 179
6.3.3 Drainage to the Ground Water Table 181
6.4 Evaporation from a Bare Soil 182
6.4.1 Steady Evaporation 183
6.4.1.1 Homogeneous Soil Profile 183
6.4.1.2 Layered Soil Profiles 185
6.4.2 Unsteady Evaporation 187
6.5 Evapotranspiration 193
6.5.1 Transpiration 195
6.5.1.1 Transport of Water in Plants 195
6.5.1.2 Potential and Actual Transpiration 201
6.5.1.3 Wilting Point 205
6.5.2 Potential Evapotranspiration 206
6.5.2.1 Computational Methods for Estimating ETP 206
6.5.2.2 Structure of Evapotranspiration 209
6.5.3 Actual Evapotranspiration ETA 212
6.5.3.1 Soil Water Balance 214
6.5.3.2 Plant Surface Measurements 215
6.5.3.3 Micrometeorological Methods 216
Problems 217
7 Estimating Soil Hydraulic Functions 219
7.1 Laboratory Methods 220
7.1.1 Steady State Method 220
7.1.2 Transient Methods 220
7.1.2.1 Infiltration Methods 221
7.1.2.2 Pressure Outflow Methods 221
7.1.2.3 Centrifuge Methods 223
7.2 Field Methods 225
7.2.1 Steady Flow Methods 228
7.2.2 Restrictive Unsteady Flow Methods 230
7.2.2.1 Infiltration Tests 230
7.2.2.2 Redistribution Tests 234
7.2.3 Unrestrictive Unsteady Flow Methods 237
7.2.3.1 Inverse Solutions 237
7.2.32 State-Space Solutions 238
Problems 243
8 Field Soil Heterogeneity 246
8.1 Variability of Soil Physical Properties 246
8.2 Concept of Soil Heterogeneity 251
8.3 Spatial Variability and Geostatistics 252
8.3.1 Autocorrelograms and Semivariograms 254
8.3.2 Krieine and Cokrigine 258
8.4 Scaling 262
8.5 State-space Equations for Multiple Locations 269
Problems 272
9 Transport of Solutes in Soils 274
9.1 Solute Interactions 274
9.1.1 Molecular Diffusion 275
9.1.2 Electrostatic and Electrokinetic Forces 276
9.1.3 Other Reactions 278
9.2 Miscible Displacement in a Capillary 279
9.2.1 Displacement without Molecular Diffusion 279
9.2.2 Displacement with Molecular Diffusion 282
9.3 Miscible Displacement in Surrogate Porous Media 284
9.3.1 Displacement in Capillary Networks 285
9.3.2 Miscible Displacement as a Random Walk Process 286
9.3.3 Displacement in a Representative Elementary Volume 287
9.4 One-dimension Laboratory Observations 290
9.4.1 Breakthrough Curves 291
9.4.2 Magnitude of the Diffusion Coefficient 296
9.4.3 The Impact of Density and Viscosity 297
9.4.4 Influences of Solution Concentration and pH 298
9.4.5 Influence of Displacement Length 299
9.5 Theoretical Descriptions 301
9.5.1 The Convective-Diffusion Equation 301
9.5.1.1 Solutes in Continual Equilibrium with the Solid Phase 305
9.5.1.2 Solutes Not in Equilibrium with the Solid Phase 305
9.5.1.3 Dual-Porosity Models for Structured Soils 307
9.5.1.4 Consecutive Convective-Diffusion Equations 309
9.5.2 Chromatographic Formulations 311
9.5.3 Stochastic Considerations 313
9.5.3.1 Monte Carlo Simulations 314
9.5.3.2 Stochastic Continuum Equations 316
9.5.3.3 Stochastic Convective Equations 317
9.6 Implications for Water and Solute Management 319
Problems 323
Postscript 325
Post-Postscript 333
References 334
Index 364