We examined the effects of N fertilization on forest soil fungal and bacterial biomass at three long-term experiments in New England (Harvard Forest, MA; Mt. Ascutney, VT; Bear Brook, ME). At Harvard Forest, chronic N fertilization has decreased organic soil microbial biomass C (MBC) by an average of 54% and substrate induced respiration (SIR) was decreased by an average of 45% in hardwood stan...

Soil particle size distribution PSD i.e., clay, silt, sand, and rock contents information is one of critical factors for understanding water cycle since it affects almost all of water cycle processes, e.g., drainage, runoff, soil moisture, evaporation, and evapotranspiration. With information about soil PSD, we can estimate almost all soil hydraulic properties e.g., saturated soil moisture, fie...

1. INTRODUCTION Deardorff (1978, D78 henceforth) showed that a two-layered force-restore scheme is superior to bulk scheme in describing the surface soil moisture content because it contains the mechanism by which a deeper soil layer can influence the thin surface layer. This gives the flexibility and advantages in superficial soil moisture prediction especially when there are precipitation and...

The potential sensitivity of ecological models to differences in soil temperature and soil water from land-surface models was evaluated by using model output from the PILPS land-surface model comparison. Simulated soil water and temperatures from the land-surface models were used to calculate the abiotic decomposition factor (ADF). ADF is used by ecosystem models to directly control microbial a...

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 V. I. Ferronsky, Nuclear Geophysics, Springer Geophysics, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-12451-3_2 Abstract Physical effects of a gamma-ray beam passing through matter as a basis for soil density determination is discussed. These effects for moderate-energy gamma rays are the photoelectric and Compton effects and production of electronpositron pairs i...

Different residue types and standing stubble versus distributed flat residues affect heat and water transfer at the soil surface to varying degrees. Understanding the effects of various residue configurations can assist in better residue management decisions, but this is complex due to various interacting influences. Therefore, modeling the effects of crop residues on heat and water movement ca...

Saharan paleo-groundwater from the Hasouna area of Libya contains up to 1.8 mM of nitrate, which exceeds the World Health Organization limit for drinking water, but the origin is still disputed. Herein we show that a positive 17O excess in NO−3 (1 ONO3 = δ ONO3−0.52δ ONO3) is preserved in the paleo-groundwater. The 17O excess provides an excellent tracer of atmospheric NO−3 , which is caused by...