F. J. Cook

Export of Acidity in Drainage Water from Acid Sulphate Soils

Abstract Disturbed acid sulphate soils are potent sources of acidity in coastal waterways. Monitoring studies of the drainage water for sites at East Trinity, Cairns and Pimpama, south-east Queensland indicate that considerable acidity is found in the drainage water from these sites. Hydrogen (H+), ferrous (Fe2+) and aluminium (Al) ions are the dominant acid cations involved. When drainage water is mixed with fresh or marine waters the effect of H+ on acidity generation is immediate. Aluminium can release acidity on hydrolysis, while the oxidation of Fe2+ to Fe3+ both acidifies and removes dissolved oxygen from the water. Strongly acidic waters with low levels of dissolved oxygen concentration are undesirable for most forms of aquatic life. Export of acidity from acid sulphate soil is likely to have a major effect on inshore fisheries and breeding grounds especially in periods of flood following drought or periods of low rainfall, where large volumes of acidity can be flushed/leached into sensitive aquatic/marine habitats. Impacts may include low dissolved oxygen, fish kills, epizootic ulceration syndrome and damage to oysters. During the processes of oxidation and hydrolysis, iron and aluminium flocs form, that can smother benthic communities. Heavy metals are found in the drainage water at elevated levels and may also be of concern for aquatic organisms. Chronic effects such as habitat degradation, mortality of marine worms, bivalves, invasion of acid tolerant species (both plant and animal) and avoidance of habitat have been documented elsewhere. These areas require further research.

Soil-dependent wetting from trickle emitters: implications for system design and management

For trickle irrigation systems to deliver improved water- and nutrient-use efficiency, distance between emitters and emitter flow rates must be matched to the soils wetting characteristics and the amount and timing of water to be supplied to the crop. Broad soil texture ranges (e.g. sand, loam, clay) are usually the only information related to soil wetting used in trickle system designs. In this study, dimensions of wetted soil were calculated from hydraulic properties of 29 soils covering a wide range of textures and soil hydraulic properties to assess the impact of soil texture and/or type on soil wetting patterns. The soils came from two groups that differed in the extent to which hydraulic properties depended on soil texture. Vertical and radial distances to the wetting front from both surface and buried emitters were calculated for conditions commonly associated with daily irrigation applications in a widely spaced row crop (sugarcane) and horticultural crops. In the first group of soils, which had least expression of field structure, the wetted volume became more spherical (i.e. the wetted radius increased relative to the depth of wetting below the emitter) with increasing clay content, as is commonly accepted. However, in the second group of soils in which field structure was preserved, there was no such relationship between wetted dimensions and texture. For example, five soils with the same texture had as great a variation in wetting pattern, as did all 11 soils in the first group, indicating the considerable impact of field structure on wetting patterns. The implications of the results for system design and management were illustrated by comparing current recommendations for trickle irrigation systems in coastal northeastern Australia with the calculated wetted dimensions. The results suggest that (1) emitter spacings recommended for sugarcane are generally too large to allow complete wetting between emitters, and (2) the depth of wetting may be greater than the active root zone for both sugarcane and small crops in many soils, resulting in losses of water and chemicals below the root zone. We conclude that texture is an unreliable predictor of wetting and there is no basis for adopting different dripper spacing in soils of different textures in the absence of site-specific information on soil wetting. Such information is crucial for the design of efficient trickle irrigation systems.

WetUp: a software tool to display approximate wetting patterns from drippers

Knowledge of the wetted perimeter of soil arising from infiltration of water from trickle irrigation drippers is important in the design and management of efficient systems. A user-friendly software tool, WetUp, has been developed to help highlight the impact of soils on water distribution in trickle-irrigated systems. WetUp determines the approximate radial and vertical wetting distances from an emitter in homogeneous soils calculated using analytical methods, and then uses an elliptical plotting function to approximate the expected wetted perimeter. In this paper we describe WetUp and use examples to demonstrate how it can be applied. We also compare the wetted perimeter predicted using WetUp with that predicted by other methods. Results show that the wetting pattern is well described by the ellipsoidal approximation for slowly permeable soils, but that it tends to underestimate the radial wetting in highly permeable soils, particularly as the volume of applied water increases. The error is, however, small in most cases, and of minimal concern when applying WetUp to illustrate the important role that soil hydraulic properties play in determining wetting patterns.

Soil–water and solute movement under precision irrigation: knowledge gaps for managing sustainable root zones

Precision irrigation involves the accurate and precise application of water to meet the specific requirements of individual plants or management units and minimize adverse environmental impact. Under precision irrigation applications, water and associated solute movement will vary spatially within the root zone and excess water application will not necessarily result in deep drainage and leaching of salt below the root zone. This paper estimates that 10% of the irrigated land area (producing as much as 40% of the total annual revenue from irrigated land) could be adversely affected by root zone salinity resulting from the adoption of precision irrigation within Australia. The cost of increases in root zone salinisation due to inappropriate irrigation management in the Murray and Murrumbidgee irrigation areas was estimated at AUD 245 million (in 2000/01) or 13.5% of the revenue from these cropping systems. A review of soil–water and solute movement under precision irrigation systems highlights the gaps in current knowledge including the mismatch between the data required by complex, process-based soil–water or solute simulation models and the data that is easily available from soil survey and routine soil analyses. Other major knowledge gaps identified include: (a) effect of root distribution, surface evaporation and plant transpiration on soil wetted patterns, (b) accuracy and adequacy of using simple mean values of root zone soil salinity levels to estimate the effect of salt on the plant, (c) fate of solutes during a single irrigation and during multiple irrigation cycles, and (d) effect of soil heterogeneity on the distribution of water and solutes in relation to placement of water. Opportunities for research investment are identified across a broad range of areas including: (a) requirements for soil characterisation, (b) irrigation management effects, (c) agronomic responses to variable water and salt distributions in the root zone, (d) potential to scale or evaluate impacts at various scales, (e) requirements for simplified soil–water and solute modelling tools, and (f) the need to build skills and capacity in soil–water and solute modelling.

A model of one-dimensional steady-state carbon dioxide diffusion from soil

Abstract An analytical model is developed for one-dimensional, steady-state diffusion of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from soil with, vertical decrease of the source term described by a power function and a constant diffusion coefficient. The surface flux density of CO 2 from the soil ( f m ) is derived from integration of the source term with depth. The model was tested using 2 years of monthly measurements of the soil CO 2 concentration profile in a sand containing a Pinus radiata D. Don tree. Modelled surface flux density ( f m ) at the base of the tree was consistently greater than surface flux density ( f 0 ) measured 0.35 m away with an average ratio of f m to f 0 of 2.5 (R 2 =0.83). This was explained by decreasing root length density ( L v ) with radial distance from the tree stem. An exponential function for decrease of L v and the surface flux density of CO 2 with increasing radial distance from the tree stem and an analytical expression of the total CO 2 flux from the soil around a growing tree root system were derived. Length scales for both the decrease in root length density and CO 2 flux with radial distance were similar. An expression to estimate the radial distance from the tree stem, that gives an average plot value of CO 2 surface flux density was also derived.

Quantification of surface energy fluxes from a small water body using scintillometry and eddy covariance

Accurate quantification of evaporation from small water storages is essential for water management and planning, particularly in water-scarce regions. In order to ascertain suitable methods for direct measurement of evaporation from small water bodies, this study presents a comparison of eddy covariance and scintillometry measurements from a reservoir in southeast Queensland, Australia. The work presented expands on a short study presented by McJannet et al. (2011) to include comparisons of eddy covariance measurements and scintillometer-derived predictions of surface energy fluxes under a wide range of seasonal weather conditions. In this study, analysis was undertaken to ascertain whether important theoretical assumptions required for both techniques are valid in the complex environment of a small reservoir. Statistical comparison, energy balance closure, and the relationship between evaporation measurements and key environmental controls were used to compare the results of the two techniques. Reasonable agreement was shown between the sensible heat flux measurements from eddy covariance and scintillometry, while scintillometer-derived estimates of latent heat flux were approximately 21% greater than eddy covariance measurements. We suggest possible reasons for this difference and provide recommendations for further research for improving measurements of surface energy fluxes over small water bodies using eddy covariance and scintillometry. Key Points Source areas for Eddy covariance and scintillometry were on the water surface Reasonable agreement was shown between the sensible heat flux measurements Scintillometer estimates of latent heat flux were greater than eddy covariance

Oxidation rate of pyrite in acid sulfate soils: in situ measurements and modelling

The generation of acidity from oxidation of pyrite in acid sulfate soils requires the transport of oxygen into the soil profile. The sink for this oxygen will not only be the chemical reaction with pyrite but the biological processes associated with both microbial and plant respiration. The biological sinks in burning the oxygen (O2) will release CO2. The respiratory quotient which is the molar volume ratio of O2 : CO2 varies between 1.3 and 0.7 depending on the source of the organic matter being oxidised, but is generally 1.0. The oxidation of pyrite by oxygen will, by comparison with the biological processes, produce minor amounts of CO2 (if any) by reaction with intrinsic carbonate minerals. Gas samplers were installed into the soil at various depths and samples collected from these at approximately fortnightly intervals. The samples were analysed by gas chromatography and the CO2 and O2 profiles obtained. The flux of these gases was calculated and the difference between these attributed to the oxidation of pyrite. The flux difference varied over the period of sampling and on average gave an in situ oxidation rate of 11.5 tonnes H2SO4/ha.year. This is considerably more that the rate of export of acidity from this site and would explain the considerable actual acidity storage in these soils. A model is developed for steady state transport of oxygen into soils with an exponentially decreasing biological sink with depth and an exponentially increasing chemical (pyrite) sink with depth. The model is developed in non-dimensional variables, which allows the relative strengths and rates of increase or decrease in sink terms to be explored. This model does not explicitly treat the flow of oxygen in macropores. Other models that do explicitly calculate macropore flow are compared and found to give similar results. These results suggest that the use of biological or other sinks near the soil surface could be a useful method for reducing the oxidation rate of pyrite in acid sulfate soils.

Effects of lime and water content on soil respiration

Abstract This study investigated the effect of liming on soil respiration. Naike clay loam soil samples were taken from an area to which lime had been applied at 3 t ha-1 and from an adjacent unlimed area. The effect of slow drying and 2 rewetting events on soil respiration was determined using gas chromatography. Water potential was determined using either thermocouple hygrometry or interpolation from gravimetric water content. The change in gravimetric water content was measured by change in mass of the flasks plus contents. The effect of substrate depletion on microbial activity was examined by keeping samples of unlimed soil moist throughout the 100-day experiment. he microbial activity in the limed soil may be accounted for by its increased water content compared to the unlimed soil at the same water potential. For soil which was kept moist, microbial activity (A) decreased with time (t) in the following manner. For soil which was dried gradually, the following relationship was found between soil res...

Modelling oxygen transport in soil with plant root and microbial oxygen consumption: depth of oxygen penetration

A set of equations governing oxygen diffusion and consumption in soils has been developed to include microbial and plant-root sinks. The dependent variable is the transformed oxygen concentration, which is the difference between the gaseous concentration and a scaled value of the aqueous oxygen concentration at the root-soil interface. The results show how, as the air-filled porosity decreases, the reduced oxygen flux causes the depth of extinction to decrease. The results also show how the depth of extinction at a particular value of soil water content decreases with increasing temperature, due to increased microbial respiration. The critical value of water content at which the oxygen concentration goes to extinction at a finite depth was compared with alternative calculations with only a microbial sink. By ignoring the feedback of oxygen concentration on root uptake, the alternative calculations yielded substantially higher critical values of water content at all temperatures. Two soil oxygen diffusion coefficient functions from the literature were compared and shown to give significantly different critical values of water content for fine-textured soils, one more realistic than the other. A single relationship between the extinction depth and the ratio of the water content to the critical value was shown to apply for all temperatures and soil textures. The oxygen profiles were used along with a function relating redox potential to oxygen concentration to generate redox potential profiles. This application of the model could be useful in explaining soil biochemical processes in soils. For one such process, denitrification, the depth at which a critical oxygen concentration is reached was calculated as a function of the air-filled porosity and temperature of the soil. The implications of the critical value of soil water content in terms of water-filled pore space and matric potential are discussed in relation to the diffusion coefficient functions and recent literature. Journal compilation

Implementation of quadratic upstream interpolation schemes for solute transport into HYDRUS-1D

Numerical solution of the advection-dispersion equation, used to evaluate transport of solutes in porous media, requires discretization schemes for space and time stepping. We examine use of quadratic upstream interpolation schemes QUICK, QUICKEST, and the total variation diminution scheme ULTIMATE, and compare these with UPSTREAM and CENTRAL schemes in the HYDRUS-1D model. Results for purely convective transport show that quadratic schemes can reduce the oscillations compared to the CENTRAL scheme and numerical dispersion compared to the UPSTREAM scheme. When dispersion is introduced all schemes give similar results for Peclet number Pe < 2. All schemes show similar behavior for non-uniform grids that become finer in the direction of flow. When grids become coarser in the direction of flow, some schemes produce considerable oscillations, with all schemes showing significant clipping of the peak, but quadratic schemes extending the range of stability tenfold to Pe < 20. Similar results were also obtained for transport of a non-linear retarded solute transport (except the QUICK scheme) and for reactive transport (except the UPSTREAM scheme). Analysis of transient solute transport show that all schemes produce similar results for the position of the infiltration front for Pe = 2. When Pe = 10, the CENTRAL scheme produced significant oscillations near the infiltration front, compared to only minor oscillations for QUICKEST and no oscillations for the ULTIMATE scheme. These comparisons show that quadratic schemes have promise for extending the range of stability in numerical solutions of solute transport in porous media and allowing coarser grids.