Variability of drainage and solute leaching in heterogeneous urban vegetation environs

Deep percolation enhancement from recycled wastewater irrigation may contribute to salt accumulation and water table elevation that can ultimately cause soil and ground water degradation. Variation of drainage rate and solute leaching were investigated in an urban park containing heterogeneous landscape plants that were irrigated with recycled wastewater. Field monitoring was undertaken at Veale Gardens in the Adelaide Parklands, Australia. Based on landscape variation in Veale Gardens, two landscape zones were defined: one being largely covered with turf grasses with few trees and shrubs (MG) with the second zone being mostly trees and shrubs with intermittent turf grasses (MT). Experiments were performed on two zero-tension lysimeters placed horizontally 100 cm below ground to monitor the variation of volume and quality indicators of drained water for four seasons. The outcomes showed a significant variation of drainage quantity and quality in the MT and MG zones. The low vegetation cover in the MG zone resulted in more drained water than in the high vegetation cover (MT zone). In both zones, more drainage water was collected in winter than in other seasons. This is in spite of the input water showing a maximum rate in summer. The seasonal salinities measured in the two lysimeters showed very similar trends with the lowest salinity rate in autumn with the levels increasing through winter and spring. Chemical analyses of leachate solute and salt loading indicated no impact from using recycled wastewater.

Spatial and temporal distribution of drainage and solute leaching in heterogeneous urban vegetation environments

Deep percolation enhancement from recycled wastewater irrigation may contribute to salt accumulation and water table elevation that can ultimately cause soil and ground water degradation. The spatial and temporal variation of drainage rate and solute leaching were investigated in an urban park containing heterogeneous landscape plants that were irrigated with recycled wastewater. Field monitoring was undertaken at Veale Gardens in the Adelaide Parklands, Australia. Based on the landscape variation in Veale Gardens, two landscape zones were defined: one being largely covered with turf grasses with few trees and shrubs (MG) with the second zone being mostly trees and shrubs with intermittent turf grasses (MT). Experiments were performed using two zero-tension lysimeters placed horizontally 100 cm below ground to monitor the spatio-temporal behaviour of drained water and nutrient loadings for four seasons. The outcomes showed a large spatial and temporal variation of drainage quantity and quality in the MT and MG zones. The low vegetation cover in the MG zone resulted in more drained water than in the high vegetation cover (MT zone). In both zones, more drainage water was collected in winter than in other seasons. This is in spite of the input water showing a maximum rate in summer. The seasonal salinities measured in the two lysimeters showed very similar trends with the lowest salinity rate in autumn with the levels increasing through winter and spring. Chemical analyses of the leachate solute indicated no detrimental impact from using recycled wastewater during the study period.

Spatial distribution of solute leaching with snowmelt and irrigation: measurements and simulations

Transport of a tracer and a degradable solute in a heterogeneous soil was measured in the field, and simulated with several transient and steady state infiltration rates. Leaching surfaces were used to investigate the solute leaching in space and time simultaneously. In the simulations, a random field for the scaling factor in the retention curve was used for the heterogeneous soil, which was based on the spatial distribution of drainage in an experiment with a multi-compartment sampler. As a criterion to compare the results from simulations and observations, the sorted and cumulative total drainage in a cell was used. The effect of the ratio of the infiltration rate over the degradation rate on leaching of degradable solutes was investigated. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the leaching of degradable and non-degradable solutes was compared. The infiltration rate determines the amount of leaching of the degradable solute. This can be partly explained by a decreasing travel time with an increasing infiltration rate. The spatial distribution of the leaching also depends on the infiltration rate. When the infiltration rate is high compared to the degradation rate, the leaching of the degradable solute is similar as for the tracer. The fraction of the pore space of the soil that contributes to solute leaching increases with an increasing infiltration rate. This fraction is similar for a tracer and a degradable solute. With increasing depth, the leaching becomes more homogeneous, as a result of dispersion. The spatial distribution of the solute leaching is different under different transient infiltration rates, therefore, also the amount of leaching is different. With independent stream tube approaches, this effect would be ignored.

Spatial distribution of solute leaching with snowmelt and irrigation: measurements and simulations

Transport of a tracer and a degradable solute in a heterogeneous soil was measured in the field, and simulated with several transient and steady state infiltration rates. Leaching surfaces were used to investigate the solute leaching in space and time simultaneously. In the simulations, a random field for the scaling factor in the retention curve was used for the heterogeneous soil, which was based on the spatial distribution of drainage in an experiment with a multi-compartment sampler. As a criterion to compare the results from simulations and observations, the sorted and cumulative total drainage in a cell was used. The effect of the ratio of the infiltration rate over the degradation rate on leaching of degradable solutes was investigated. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the leaching of degradable and non-degradable solutes was compared. The infiltration rate determines the amount of leaching of the degradable solute. This can be partly explained by a decreasing travel time with an increasing infiltration rate. The spatial distribution of the leaching also depends on the infiltration rate. When the infiltration rate is high compared to the degradation rate, the leaching of the degradable solute is similar as for the tracer. The fraction of the soil that contributes to solute leaching increases with an increasing infiltration rate. This fraction is similar for a tracer and a degradable solute. With increasing depth, the leaching becomes more homogeneous, as a result of dispersion. The spatial distribution of the solute leaching is different under different transient infiltration rates, therefore also the amount of leaching is different. With independent stream tube approaches, this effect would be ignored.

Functional test of pedotransfer functions to predict water flow and solute transport with the dual-permeability model MACRO

Estimating pesticide leaching risks at the regional scale requires the ability to completely parameterise a pesticide fate model using only survey data, such as soil and land-use maps. Such parameterisations usually rely on a set of lookup tables and (pedo)transfer functions, relating elementary soil and site properties to model parameters. The aim of this paper is to describe and test a complete set of parameter estimation algorithms developed for the pesticide fate model MACRO, which accounts for preferential flow in soil macropores. We used tracer monitoring data from 16 lysimeter studies, carried out in three European countries, to evaluate the ability of MACRO and this "blind parameterisation" scheme to reproduce measured solute leaching at the base of each lysimeter. We focused on the prediction of early tracer breakthrough due to preferential flow, because this is critical for pesticide leaching. We then calibrated a selected number of parameters in order to assess to what extent the prediction of water and solute leaching could be improved. Our results show that water flow was generally reasonably well predicted (median model efficiency, ME, of 0.42). Although the general pattern of solute leaching was reproduced well by the model, the overall model efficiency was low (median ME = −0.26) due to errors in the timing and magnitude of some peaks. Preferential solute leaching at early pore volumes was also systematically underestimated. Nonetheless, the ranking of soils according to solute loads at early pore volumes was reasonably well estimated (concordance correlation coefficient, CCC, between 0.54 and 0.72). Moreover, we also found that ignoring macropore flow leads to a significant deterioration in the ability of the model to reproduce the observed leaching pattern, and especially the early breakthrough in some soils. Finally, the calibration procedure showed that improving the estimation of solute transport parameters is probably more important than the estimation of water flow parameters. Overall, the results are encouraging for the use of this modelling set-up to estimate pesticide leaching risks at the regional-scale, especially where the objective is to identify vulnerable soils and "source" areas of contamination.