G.H. de Rooij

Nitrate response of a lowland catchment: On the relation between stream concentration and travel time distribution dynamics

Nitrate pollution of surface waters is widespread in lowland catchments with intensive agriculture. For identification of effective nitrate concentration reducing measures the nitrate fluxes within catchments need to be quantified. In this paper we applied a mass transfer function approach to simulate catchment‐scale nitrate transport. This approach was extended with time‐varying travel time distributions and removal of nitrate along flow paths by denitrification to be applicable for lowland catchments. Numerical particle tracking simulations revealed that transient travel time distributions are highly irregular and rapidly changing, reflecting the dynamics of rainfall and evapotranspiration. The solute transport model was able to describe 26 years of frequently measured chloride and nitrate concentrations in the Hupsel Brook catchment (6.6 km2 lowland catchment in the Netherlands) with an R2 value of 0.86. Most of the seasonal and daily variations in concentrations could be attributed to temporal changes of the travel time distributions. A full sensitivity analysis revealed that measurements other than just surface water nitrate and chloride concentrations are needed to constrain the uncertainty in denitrification, plant uptake, and mineralization of organic matter. Despite this large uncertainty, our results revealed that denitrification removes more nitrate from the Hupsel Brook catchment than stream discharge. This study demonstrates that a catchment‐scale lumped approach to model chloride and nitrate transport processes suffices to accurately capture the dynamics of catchment‐scale surface water concentration as long as the model includes detailed transient travel time distributions

Modeling fingered flow of water in soils owing to wetting front instability: a review

Abstract Fingered flow in the unsaturated zone caused by wetting front instability enhances solute leaching to the groundwater. This paper reviews recent progress in fingered flow research, focusing on theoretical results and model development. A variety of stability criteria have been derived to predict wetting front instability, mainly through linear, and sometimes non-linear, stability analysis, but also by theoretically analyzing infiltration into dry soils, and by stochastic methods that take into account random variations of the soil properties, fluid pressure, and front location. These stability criteria are discussed and compared. Eight expressions for finger size are presented. They fall into three categories based on the dependence on the ratio of the infiltration rate to the soil hydraulic conductivity in the finger. Next, the modeling of finger growth is discussed. Because of its relevance to solute transport, recent advances in the measurement and modeling of finger behavior in moist soils are thoroughly reviewed. Various models (ranging from easily applied closed-form equations for risk assessment to sophisticated transient numerical codes) have been developed over the past 15 years. These are discussed and selected results are shown. Finally, some remaining gaps in our understanding are given. Among these are the role of the initial water content, the nature of the flow in the distribution zone above the fingers, the effect of soil heterogeneity on wetting front instability, and the combined effect of soil heterogeneity and wetting front instability on field-scale solute transport.

Improving load estimates for NO3 and P in surface waters by characterizing the concentration response to rainfall events

For the evaluation of action programs to reduce surface water pollution, water authorities invest heavily in water quality monitoring. However, sampling frequencies are generally insufficient to capture the dynamical behavior of solute concentrations. For this study, we used on-site equipment that performed semicontinuous (15 min interval) NO(3) and P concentration measurements from June 2007 to July 2008. We recorded the concentration responses to rainfall events with a wide range in antecedent conditions and rainfall durations and intensities. Through sequential linear multiple regression analysis, we successfully related the NO(3) and P event responses to high-frequency records of precipitation, discharge, and groundwater levels. We applied the regression models to reconstruct concentration patterns between low-frequency water quality measurements. This new approach significantly improved load estimates from a 20% to a 1% bias for NO(3) and from a 63% to a 5% bias for P. These results demonstrate the value of commonly available precipitation, discharge, and groundwater level data for the interpretation of water quality measurements. Improving load estimates from low-frequency concentration data just requires a period of high-frequency concentration measurements and a conceptual, statistical, or physical model for relating the rainfall event response of solute concentrations to quantitative hydrological changes.

A field experiment with variable-suction multi-compartment samplers to measure the spatio-temporal distribution of solute leaching in an agricultural soil

Solutes spread out in time and space as they move downwards from the soil surface with infiltrating water. Solute monitoring in the field is often limited to observations of resident concentrations, while flux concentrations govern the movement of solutes in soils. A recently developed multi-compartment sampler is capable of measuring fluxes at a high spatial resolution with minimal disturbance of the local pressure head field. The objective of this paper is to use this sampler to quantify the spatial and temporal variation of solute leaching below the root zone in an agricultural field under natural rainfall in winter and spring. We placed two samplers at 31 and 25 cm depth in an agricultural field, leaving the soil above undisturbed. Each sampler contained 100 separate cells of 31x31 mm. Water fluxes were measured every 5 min for each cell. We monitored leaching of a chloride pulse under natural rainfall by frequently extracting the collected leachate while leaving the samplers buried in situ. This experiment was followed by a dye tracer experiment. This setting yielded information that widely surpassed the information that can be provided by separate anionic and dye tracer trials, and solute transport monitoring by coring or suction cups. The detailed information provided by the samplers showed that percolation at the sampling depth started much faster (approximately 3 h after the start of rainfall) in initially wet soil (pressure head above -65 cm) than in drier soil (more than 14 h at pressure heads below -80 cm). At any time, 25% of the drainage passed through 5-6% of the sampled area, reflecting the effect of heterogeneity on the flow paths. The amount of solute carried by individual cells varied over four orders of magnitude. The lateral concentration differences were limited though. This suggests a convective-dispersive regime despite the short vertical travel distance. On the other hand, the dilution index indicates a slight tendency towards stochastic-convective transport at this depth. There was no evidence in the observed drainage patterns and dye stained profiles of significant disturbance of the flow field by the samplers.

Effects of clay amendment on adsorption and desorption of copper in water repellent soils

Copper is an important micronutrient and trace amounts are essential for crop growth. However, high concentrations of copper will produce toxic effects. Australia is increasingly developing production of crops in water repellent soils. Clay amendment, a common amelioration techniques used in Australia, has demonstrated agronomic benefits in increased crop or pasture production. The sorption and desorption of copper and the effect of clay treatment on copper behaviour in a water repellent soil collected from an experimental farm in South Australia is studied. We found that the water repellent soils amended with clay have an increased adsorption capacity of copper. Also the clay-amended soils had an increased ratio of specific sorption to total sorption of copper. The implications of this study to the sustainable agro-environmental management of water repellent soils is discussed.

The solute leaching surface as a tool to assess the performance of multidimensional unsaturated solute transport models

Solutes infiltrating in soils are redistributed in time and space. The breakthrough curve captures the temporal aspect of solute redistribution. When solutes are collected at multiple sampling locations, the recently introduced spatial solute distribution curve can describe spatial redistribution of solutes by ranking the sampling locations in order of decreasing amount of solute. Then, spatio-temporal solute leaching can be described by the leaching surface: a plot of leaching as a function of both time and the cumulative area of the sorted leaching compartments. We used the leaching surface to test an analytical three-region model of fingered flow in soils with water-repellent topsoils and wettable subsoils. We compared a model-generated leaching surface with a leaching surface observed in a lysimeter with 360 sampling compartments under a 1 m 2 undisturbed core of a water-repellent soil. The model failed to predict the strong concentration of solute leaching in a small fraction of the outflow area: it distributed the solute too evenly. The diffusive-dispersive spreading of the solute front in low-flow regions of the natural soil was mimicked by the model through the variation of travel times of the slow flow tubes. The work demonstrated the use of the leaching surface surface can advance our understanding of solute transport processes.

The terrestrial hydrological cycle.

The global hydrological cycle describes the transport and occurrence of water in all three phases and its transformations from one phase to the other, on a global scale. It directly influences the cycles of other compounds, the energy cycle, the geomorphological shape of the earth as well as the global circulation of atmosphere and oceans, and by that weather and climate. Historically, different parts of the hydrological cycle have been studied by scientists from different disciplines, e. g. atmospheric water by meteorologists, oceanic water by oceanographers and terrestrial water by hydrologists. This paper will focus on the study of water present at the continent and the mutual interaction of surface and sub-surface processes with the atmosphere.

Parameterizing the Leaching Surface by Combining Curve-Fitting for Solute Breakthrough and for Spatial Solute Distribution

Multi-compartment samplers (MCSs) measure unsaturated solute transport in space and time at a given depth. Sorting the breakthrough curves (BTCs) for individual compartments in descending order of total solute amount and plotting in 3D produces the leaching surface. The leaching surface is a useful tool to organize, present, and analyze MCS data. We present a novel method to quantitatively characterize leaching surfaces. We fitted a mean pore-water velocity and a dispersion coefficient to each BTC, and then approximated their values by functions of the rank order of the BTCs. By combining the parameters of these functions with those of the Beta distribution fitted to the spatial distribution of solutes, we described an entire leaching surface by four to eight parameters. This direct characterization method allows trends to be subtracted from the observations, and incorporates the effects of local heterogeneity. The parametric fit creates the possibility to quantify concisely the leaching behavior of a soil in a given climate under given land use, and eases the quantitative comparison of spatio-temporal leaching behavior in different soils and climates.

Quantifying effects of soil heterogeneity on groundwater pollution in four sites in the USA

Four sites located in the north-eastern region of the United States of America have been chosen to investigate the impacts of soil heterogeneity in the transport of solutes (bromide and chloride) through the vadose zone (the zone in the soil that lies below the root zone and above the permanent saturated groundwater). A recently proposed mathematical model based on the cumulative beta distribution has been deployed to compare and contrast the regions’ heterogeneity from multiple sample percolation experiments. Significant differences in patterns of solute leaching were observed even over a small spatial scale, indicating that traditional sampling methods for solute transport, for example the gravity pan or suction lysimeters, or more recent inventions such as the multiple sample percolation systems may not be effective in estimating solute fluxes in soils when a significant degree of soil heterogeneity is present. Consequently, ignoring soil heterogeneity in solute transport studies will likely result in under- or overprediction of leached fluxes and potentially lead to serious pollution of soils and/or groundwater. The cumulative beta distribution technique is found to be a versatile and simple technique of gaining valuable information regarding soil heterogeneity effects on solute transport. It is also an excellent tool for guiding future decisions of experimental designs particularly in regard to the number of samples within one site and the number of sampling locations between sites required to obtain a representative estimate of field solute or drainage flux.

Quantifying effects of soil heterogeneity on groundwater pollution at four sites in USA

Four sites located in the north-eastern region of the United States of America have been chosen to investigate the impacts of soil heterogeneity in the transport of solutes (bromide and chloride) through the vadose zone (the zone in the soil that lies below the root zone and above the permanent saturated groundwater). A recently proposed mathematical model based on the cumulative beta distribution has been deployed to compare and contrast the regions’ heterogeneity from multiple sample percolation experiments. Significant differences in patterns of solute leaching were observed even over a small spatial scale, indicating that traditional sampling methods for solute transport, for example the gravity pan or suction lysimeters, or more recent inventions such as the multiple sample percolation systems may not be effective in estimating solute fluxes in soils when a significant degree of soil heterogeneity is present. Consequently, ignoring soil heterogeneity in solute transport studies will likely result in under- or overprediction of leached fluxes and potentially lead to serious pollution of soils and/or groundwater. The cumulative beta distribution technique is found to be a versatile and simple technique of gaining valuable information regarding soil heterogeneity effects on solute transport. It is also an excellent tool for guiding future decisions of experimental designs particularly in regard to the number of samples within one site and the number of sampling locations between sites required to obtain a representative estimate of field solute or drainage flux.