continuous availability of soil water is an important factor for plant growth. both lack of adequate access to water in soils, or adequate oxygen in saturated soils, may reduce or even stop plant growth. to study the behavior of pistachio seedling at various moisture levels and to determine non-limiting water range for its growth, a greenhouse experiment with a completely randomized design was ...

We are interested in Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) as a geophysical tool useful for determining the depth of the ground water table (GWT) and for monitoring shallow water infiltration in sandy soils. At hydrostatic equilibrium, the water content distribution in a homogeneous unsaturated soil down to the water saturated zone depends on the soil water retention function. A classical way to fit r...

The diffusivity and distribution of water in the butyl methacrylate and methacrylic acid copolymer films swollen in water have been investigated using the NMR relaxation and pulse field gradient (PFG) NMR techniques. The contributions of polymer matrix protons, surface water and bound water have been determined from H NMR spectra and relaxation functions. PFG NMR experiments showed that the ech...

While inverse parameter estimation techniques for determining key parameters affecting water flow and solute transport are becoming increasingly common in saturated and unsaturated zone studies, their application to practical problems, such as irrigation, have received relatively little attention. In this article, we used the Levenberg–Marquardt optimization algorithm in combination with the HY...

Compaction is a mechanical process in which an earthen material is made more dense. The densification occurs as a direct result of the mechanical loading, and is essentially complete at the end of the loading. Volume changes are incurred as a result of a reduction in the quantity of air voids— water content remaining constant. Since it is impractical to squeeze out all the air, the as-compacted...

Experiments have been carried out to study the influence of moisture condition, including moisture content and its distribution, on the chloride diffusion in partially saturated ordinary Portland cement mortar. The mortar samples with water-to-cement (w/c) ratios of 0.4, 0.5 and 0.6, cured for one year, were preconditioned to uniform water saturations ranging from 18% to 100%. The interior rela...

Snowmelt in mountainous areas is an important contributor to river water fl ows in the western United States. We developed a distributed model that calculates solar radia on, canopy energy balance, surface energy balance, snow pack dynamics, soil water fl ow, snow–soil–bedrock heat exchange, soil water freezing, and lateral surface and subsurface water fl ow. The model was applied to describe r...

To support investigations of flood tolerance occurring at a field-based research facility, changes in soil volumetric water content, temperature, redox potential, dissolved oxygen content, and pH over the course of flood events were monitored. Electronic sensors connected to dataloggers for continuous monitoring of these parameters were installed, and soil redox potential and pH were also monit...