Search

A changing climate is causing challenges for soil and water management in many parts of the world. Current soil management practices need to be redesigned to effectively address present and future fluctuating climates. Soil Hydrology in a Changing Climate explores how soil management practices impact soil hydrological characteristics, and how we can improve our understanding of soil and water management under changing conditions. Soil hydrology includes water infiltration and soil water storage, which are critical for agricultural plant and animal production. With our future climate predicted to include hotter, drier conditions, increases in evapotranspiration as well as fewer, more intense storms, improved soil management and soil hydrology are critical to ensuring our agriculture production can meet human demand. This comprehensive book is a valuable resource for land managers, soil conservationists, researchers and others who wish to understand how different management practices affect soil and water dynamics and how these practices can be adjusted to enhance agricultural sustainability and environmental quality.

Historically speaking, soil science was associated with agriculture and was subdivided into several branches. One of them was soil physics, dealing with soil mechanics, soil and water relationships and solute transport through porous media. Today, we consider soil physics as part of environmental sciences. Soil hydrology, which comprises a large part of soil physics, may now be considered as part of hydrology and is closely related to geohydrology. This is the approach followed in this book. Environmental issues frequently become critical and require taking effective measures to minimize disasters. Accordingly this book is written primarily from an engineering approach. This book is addressing students, engineers and those working in the natural sciences to obtain a basic understanding of soil hydrology. Based on my university teaching over several decades, it is intended to help students with limited mathematical and physical background to fully appreciate selected basic concepts of soil hydrology. It will also appeal to readers who seek a concise introduction to soil hydrology. The reader will obtain an overall understanding of how processes in porous media may affect land use and the environment, and how to easily apply principles of soil hydrology to common problems. There is an abundance of sophisticated equipment used to monitor, measure and analyze soil processes related to soil hydrology. The intention here is to help those readers who do not possess such equipment or expensive software. For those who cannot afford lengthy investigations, the information presented here can help in the development of measurement programs and suggest helpful ways to analyze field data. Throughout the book, simple applications of soil hydrological concepts are presented that yield effective, reasonable solutions to environmental management problems, farming technique problems, and issues in land reclamation and land improvement. Attached you find a copy of the book on CD including an Appendix containing software to explain details, evaluate soil hydraulic parameters and perform simulations. The special file named “guide to files” outlines what each file does.

This compilation opens with an exploration of the vadose, or unsaturated zone, which is of utmost importance as the nexus between surface water and groundwater. It is the link between what happens on the surface and what happens below, inside the aquifers. As such, understanding this underground natural environment is essential for the sustainable development of society. Due to the complexities involved in considering the hysteretic response of the Soil Water Characteristic Curve and its dependency on volume changes, these two features are often ignored in numerical studies of unsaturated soils. To facilitate their use in numerical modeling, a model for the Soil Water Characteristic Curve equation based on the bounding surface concept is proposed. The authors go on to focus on the temperature distribution and water migration in unsaturated soil, which is of significant importance because these factors are related to the thermal-physical properties of soil. The changes in these properties may cause disastrous engineering problems such as the cracking of pavement, damage of structure foundation and fracture of pipelines. Lastly, Unsaturated Soils: Behavior, Mechanics and Conditions addresses the measurement and expression of the mass chemical potential in the presence of superficial layers induced by a complex structure. By definition, the mass chemical potential of a constituent in a soil represents the variation of the internal energy of the medium when a unit mass of the constituent is transferred to a reference state with the entropy, volume and mass of the other constituents remaining constant.

Rainfall levels are rarely optimal, but there are hundreds of things you can do to efficiently conserve and use the water you do have and to reduce the impact of drought on your soil, crops, livestock, and farm or ranch ecosystem. Author Dale Strickler introduces you to the same innovative systems he used to transform his own drought-stricken family farm in Kansas into a thriving, water-wise, and profitable enterprise, maximizing healthy cropland, pasture, and water supply. Ranging from simple, short-term projects such as installing rain-collection ollas to long-term land-management planning strategies, Strickler's methods show how to get more water into the soil, keep it in the soil, and help plants and livestock access it. This publication conforms to the EPUB Accessibility specification at WCAG 2.0 Level AA.

An abridged, student-oriented edition of Hillel's earlier published Environmental Soil Physics, this is a more succinct elucidation of the physical principles and processes governing the behavior of soil and the vital role it plays in both natural and managed ecosystems. The textbook is self-contained and self-explanatory, with numerous illustrations and sample problems. Based on sound fundamental theory, the textbook leads to a practical consideration of soil as a living system in nature and illustrates the influences of human activity upon soil structure and function. Students, as well as other readers, will better understand the importance of soils and the pivotal possition they occupy with respect to careful and knowledgeable conservation.• Written in an engaging and clear style, posing and resolving issues relevant to the terrestrial environment.• Explores the gamut of the interactions among the phases in the soil and the dynamic interconnection of the soil with the subterranean and atmospheric domains.• Reveals the salient ideas, approaches, and methods of environmental soil physics.• Includes numerous illustrative exercises, which are explicitly solved.• Designed to serve for classroom and laboratory instruction, for self-study, and for reference.• Oriented toward practical problems in ecology, field-scale hydrology, agronomy, and civil engineering.• Differs from earlier texts in its wider scope and holistic environmental conception

It has become clear that soil water repellency is much more wide-spread than formerly thought. Water repellency has been reported in most continents of the world for varying land uses and climatic conditions. Soil water repellency often leads to severe runoff and erosion, rapid leaching of surface-applied agrichemicals, and losses of water and nutrient availability for crops. At present, no optimum management strategies exist for water repellent soils, focusing on minimizing environmental risks while maintaining crop production. The book starts with a historical overview of water repellency research, followed by seven thematic sections covering 26 research chapters. The first section discusses the origin, the second the assessment, and the third the occurrence and hydrological implications of soil water repellency. The fourth section is devoted to the effect of fire on water repellency, section five deals with the physics and modeling of flow and transport in water repellent soils, section six presents amelioration techniques and farming strategies to combat soil water repellency, and section seven concludes the book with an extensive bibliography on soil water repellency.

Soil and Water: Physical Principles and Processes describes the physical principles governing the soil-water system and particularly the sequence of processes constituting the cycle of water in the field. Organized into two parts, with a total of 11 chapters, this book first discusses the basic physical properties of both soil and water. Some chapters deal with the state of water in soil and flow of water in saturated and unsaturated soil. The second part focuses on the aspects of field water cycle, starting from the entry of water into soil to the redistribution of soil moisture. It also describes the groundwater drainage, evaporation from bare-surface soils, uptake of soil water by plants, and the water and energy balance in the field. This work is meant for students and professional workers in soil physics and other related disciplines who need or might be interested in a fundamental and up-to-date exposition of soil physics.

Applications of Soil Physics deals with the applications of soil physics and covers topics ranging from infiltration and surface runoff to groundwater drainage, evaporation from bare-surface soils, and uptake of soil moisture by plants. Water balance and energy balance in the field are also discussed, along with tillage and soil structure management. The development and extension of Penman's evaporation formula is also described. This book is comprised of 14 chapters and begins with a systematic description of the field-water cycle and its management, with emphasis on infiltration and runoff; redistribution and drainage; evaporation and transpiration; and irrigation and tillage. Subsequent chapters focus on transpiration from plant canopies; freezing phenomena in soils; scaling and similitude of soil-water phenomena; spatial variability of soil physical properties; and movement of solutes during infiltration into homogeneous soil. Concepts of soil-water availability to plants are considered, together with principles of irrigation management and the advantages and limitations of drip irrigation. This monograph is intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students of the environmental, engineering, and agronomic sciences.