Abstract
Over the past 15 years, the University of Arizona has carried out four controlled infiltration experiments in a 3, 600 m2, 15 m deep vadose zone during which the evolution of moisture content and matric potential was monitored and the subsurface stratigraphy, texture, and bulk density were characterized. This chapter will first provide a brief overview of the site characteristics and the available data. Subsequently a geospatial analysis using old and recently acquired data will be carried out to demonstrate that a vertical domain trend due to alluvial layering must be accounted for. The resulting model for subsurface texture is used to reanalyze a neutron probe calibration set, such that unbiased texture-dependent estimates of soil moisture become possible. The resulting models are applied to the third infiltration experiment conducted at the site (January 2001 to February 2002) and interpreted with moment analysis based on depth-mean moisture contents. The work presented here is a first step towards a full reanalysis of the site’s data, which in future publications will also include flow and transport modeling and an assessment how much data and of what kind are needed to build an acceptable vadose zone model.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Cleveland WS, Grosse E, Shyu WM (1992. Local regression models. In: Chambers JM, Hastie TJ (eds) Statistical models in S, Chap. . Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole, Pacific Grove, CA
Deng H, Ye M, Schaap MG, Khaleel R (2009) Quantification of uncertainty in pedotransfer function-based parameter estimation for unsaturated flow modeling. Water Resour Res 45: W04409, doi:10.1029/2008WR007477
Deutsch CV, Journel AG (1998) GSLIB-geostatistical software library and user’s guide. Oxford University Press, New York
DOE (2002) DOE/EIS-0250, Final environmental impact statement for a geologic repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada
DOE (2010) Long-range deep vadose zone program plan, DOE/RL-2010–89 Rev. 0, Richland Operations Office, Richland, WA 99352
Fang Z (2009) Using geostatistics, pedotransfer functions to generate 3d soil and hydraulic property distributions for deep vadose zone flow simulations. MS thesis The University of Arizona, Tucson
Fleming JB (2001) Applications of the inverse approach for estimating unsaturated hydraulic parameters from laboratory flow experiment. PhD dissertation, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Freyberg DL (1986) A natural gradient experiment on solute transport in a sand aquifer, 2, Spatial moments and the advection and dispersion of nonreactive tracers. Water Resour Res 22:2031–2046
Gee GW, Ward AL (2001) Vadose zone transport field study: status report, PNNL-13679, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA
Gee GW, Oostrom M, Freshley MD, Rockhold ML, Zachara JM (2007) Hanford site vadose zone studies: an overview. Vadose Zone J 6(4):899–905
Graham AR (2004) In situ characterization of unsaturated soil hydraulic properties at the Maricopa Environmental Monitoring site. MS thesis The University of Arizona, Tucson
Hignett C, Evett SR (2002) Neutron thermalization. In: Dane JH, Topp GC (eds) Methods of soil analysis: physical methods. Soil Science Society of America, Madison, WI
Ihaka R, Gentleman R (1996) R: a language for data analysis and graphics. J Comput Graph Stat 5(3):299–314
Mattson ED, Magnuson SO, Ansley SL (2004) Interpreting INEEL vadose zone water movement on the basis of large-scale field tests and long-term vadose zone monitoring results. Vadose Zone J 3(1):35–46, doi: 10.2113/?3.1.35
Neuman SP, EA Jacobson (1984) Analysis of nonintrinsic spatial variability by residual kriging with application to regional groundwater levels. Math Geology 16(5):499–521
Pebesma EJ (2004) Multivariable geostatistics in S: the gstat package. Comput. Geosci. 30:683–691
Post DF, Mack C, Camp PD, Suliman AS (1988) Mapping and characterization of the soils on The University of Arizona Maricopa Agricultural Center In: Proceedings of the American Water Resources Association, Hydrology and Water Resources in Arizona and the Southwest, vol 18, pp 49–60
R Development Core Team (2005) R: a language and environment for statistical computing, ISBN: 3–900051–07–0, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org
Schaap MG, Nemes A, Van Genuchten MTh (2004) Comparison of models for indirect estimation of water retention and available water in surface soils. Vadose Zone J 3:1455–1463
Sisson JB, Lu AH (1984) Field calibration of computer models for application to buried liquid discharges: a status report, RHO-ST-46P, Rockwell Hanford Operations, Richland, WA
Thomasson MJ (2001) Hysteretic, variably saturated, transient flow and transport models with numerical inversion techniques to characterize a field soil in central Arizona. Ph.D dissertation The University of Arizona, Tucson
Thomasson MJ, PJ Wierenga (2003) Spatial variability of the effective retardation factor in an unsaturated field soil. J hydrol 272(1–4):213–225
Wang W (2002) Uncertainty analysis of ground water flow and in unsaturated-saturated porous medium: Maricopa case. Ph.D dissertation The University of Arizona, Tucson
Wang W, Neuman SP, Yao T, Wierenga PJ (2003) Simulation of large-scale field infiltration experiments using a hierarchy of models based on public, generic and site data. Vadose Zone J 2:297–312
Ward AL, Zhang ZF, Gee GW (2006) Upscaling unsaturated hydraulic parameters for flow through heterogeneous, anisotropic sediments Adv Water Resour 29(2):268–280
Wierenga PJ, Toorman AF, Hudson DB, Vinson J, Nash M, Hills RG (1989) Soil physical properties at the Las Cruces Trench Site, U.S. Nucl. Regul. Comm. Rep., NUREG/CR-5441
Wierenga PJ, Hudson DB, Hills RG, Porro I, Vinson J, Kirkland MR (1990) Flow and transport experiments at the Las Cruces Trench Site: Experiments 1 and 2, U.S. Nucl. Regul. Comm. Rep., NUREG/CR-5607
Yao T, Wierenga PJ, Graham AG, Neuman SP (2004) Neutron probe calibration in a vertically stratified vadose zone. Vadose Zone J 3:1400–1406
Ye M, Schaap MG, Khaleel R, Zhu J (2007) Simulation of field injection experiments in a layered formation using geostatistical methods and artificial neural network. Water Resour Res 43:W07413, doi:10.1029/2006WR005030
Young MH, Wierenga PJ, Warrick AW, Hofmann LL, Musil SA, Yao M, Mai CJ, Zou Z, Scanlon BR (1999) Results of field studies at the Maricopa Environmental Monitoring Site, Arizona. Rep. NUREG/CR-5694. US. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington DC
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Professor S. P. Neuman and Y. Zhang, both at the University of Arizona for valuable discussions. Site construction and field observations were supported by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission under contract number NRC-04–97–056 (1997–2002). The data collection for and the development of the geospatial model was supported in part by NSF-EAR grant 0737945 (2005–2009). The reanalysis of the neutron calibration data and moment analysis was supported in part through a contract between the University of Arizona and Vanderbilt University under the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) III, funded by the US Department of Energy (2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schaap, M.G. (2013). Description, Analysis, and Interpretation of an Infiltration Experiment in a Semiarid Deep Vadose Zone. In: Mishra, P., Kuhlman, K. (eds) Advances in Hydrogeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6479-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6479-2_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6478-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6479-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)