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Solute Transport in Heterogeneous Field Soils

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Intermedia Pollutant Transport

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to briefly review current approaches to quantifying (modeling) solute transport in the unsaturated (vadose) zone of field soils. Much progress has been attained in the analytical and numerical description of vadose zone transfer processes. A variety of mathematical models are now available to describe and predict water flow and solute transport between the land surface and the groundwater table. The most popular models remain the classical Richards’ equations for unsaturated flow and the Fickian-based convection-dispersion equation for solute transport. While deterministic solutions of these equations remain useful tools in both fundamental and applied research, their practical utility for predicting actual field-scale water and solute distributions is increasingly being questioned. Problems caused by preferential flow through soil macro-pores, spatial and temporal variability in the soil hydraulic properties, various nonequilibrium processes affecting chemical transport, and a lack of progress in improving our field measurement technology, have contributed to some disillusionment with the classical models. A number of alternative deterministic and stochastic approaches have been proposed to better deal with field-scale heterogeneities. These models have greatly increased our quantitative understanding of field-scale flow and transport processes, and in some cases also resulted in better practical tools for management purposes.

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  1. U.S. Salinity Laboratory, USDA-ARS, Riverside, California, USA

    Martinus Th van Genuchten & Peter J. Shouse

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  1. Martinus Th van Genuchten
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  1. University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    David T. Allen , Yoram Cohen  & Isaac R. Kaplan ,  & 

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van Genuchten, M.T., Shouse, P.J. (1989). Solute Transport in Heterogeneous Field Soils. In: Allen, D.T., Cohen, Y., Kaplan, I.R. (eds) Intermedia Pollutant Transport. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0511-8_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-0511-8_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7843-6

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