H42C-01
Groundwater Under Vertisols
Thursday, 17 December 2015: 10:20
3018 (Moscone West)
Daniel Kurtzman, Agricultural Research Organization Volcani Center, Bet-Dagan, Israel; Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, Institute of Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, Bet Dagan, Israel, Shahar Baram, University of California Davis, Land, Air and Water Resources, Davis, CA, United States and Ofer Dahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Dept. of Hydrology and Microbiology, Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Sde Boker, Israel
Abstract:
Vertisols are cracking clayey soils that: i) usually form in alluvial lowlands where normally, groundwater pools into aquifers; ii) have different types of voids (due to cracking) which make flow and transport of water and gas complex, and iii) are regarded as fertile soils in many areas. The combination of these characteristics results in the unique soil–aquifer phenomena that are highlighted and summarized in this review work. The following four vertisols-aquifer topics will be discussed: 1) Soil cracks as preferential pathways for water and contaminants - Lysimeter to basin-scale observations show the significance of cracks as preferential flow paths in vertisols that bypass matrix blocks in the unsaturated zone. Fresh recharge and groundwater contamination from these fluxes will be reviewed; 2) Soil cracks as deep evaporators and unsaturated-zone salinity - Deep soil samples under uncultivated vertisols in semiarid regions reveal a dry (immobile), saline matrix, partly due to enhanced evaporation through soil cracks. Observations of this phenomenon will be compared and the mechanism of evapoconcentration due to air flow in the cracks is discussed; 3) Impact of cultivation on flushing of the unsaturated zone and aquifer salinization - Land-use change of vertisols from native land to cropland promotes greater fluxes through the saline unsaturated-zone matrix, eventually flushing salts to the aquifer. Different degrees of salt flushing will be presented as well as aquifer salinization on different scales, and a comparison is made with aquifers under other soils; 4) Relatively little nitrate contamination in aquifers under vertisols - A number of observations show that aquifers under cultivated vertisols are somewhat resistant to groundwater contamination by nitrate (the major agriculturally related groundwater problem). Denitrification is probably the main mechanism supporting this resistance, whereas a certain degree of anion-exchange capacity may have a retarding effect as well.
