Soil microbial properties are known to exhibit high spatial and temporal variability, which can hinder our understanding of the effects of agricultural management on soil microbial activities, populations and communities. However, if this variability is explicitly considered in soil sampling schemes, experimental results can help us better understand soil microbial properties. In this initial a...

Soils lie at the interface between the atmosphere and the subsurface and are a key component that control ecosystem services, food production, and many other processes at the Earth's surface. There is a long-established convention for identifying and mapping soils by texture. These readily available, georeferenced soil maps and databases are used widely in environmental sciences. Here, we show ...

Tests were conducted to determine the variation of water content and pore water suction for compacted clayey soils. The soils had varying amounts of clay fraction with plasticities ranging from low to high plasticity. The unsaturated soil behavior was investigated for six conditions, covering a range of compactive efforts and water contents. The experimental data were fit to four commonly used ...

Conventional water resources of good quality are scarce especially in arid and semiarid regions. The salinization of soils and water places is a substantial constraint of crop productivity. The mixed application of fresh water along with seawater is becoming a common practice by the farmers near sea sides in the developing countries. Seawaters contain beneficial nutrients that can be useful for...

In temperate European climates, the season of peak water demand by vegetation (summer) is out of phase with the season of greatest rainfall (winter). This results in seasonal fluctuations in soil water content and, in clay soils, associated problems of shrinking and swelling that can in turn contribute to strain-softening and progressive slope failure. This paper presents field measurements of ...

Tracheo-brachiocephalic artery fistulas were rarely reported lesions often described in cases with tracheostomy procedures. Reported case was 26 year-old male drainage worker, trapped under the stony soil while excavating drainage canal. Rescue operation was performed, but he was reached dead. Provincial prosecutor mandated autopsy after crime scene investigation. Autopsy examination revealed t...

The current practices used in tube drainage design often lead to unsatisfactory results : from the point of view of the system's hydraulic performance, or from the point of view of high cost of the system in relation to the actual economic benefits derived from it. It is proposed therefore, that the design of tube drainage systems should be based on a synthesis of experimental field results, an...

Proper N fertilizer and irrigation management can reduce nitrate leaching while maintaining crop yield, which is critical to enhance the sustainability of vegetable production on soils with poor water and nutrient-holding capacities. This study evaluated different methods to measure nitrate leaching in mulched drip-irrigated zucchini, pepper, and tomato production systems. Fertigation rates wer...

This study was conducted to evaluate the performance of DRAINMOD /DRAINMOD-N on an experimental drainage field at Southeast Purdue Agricultural Center (SEPAC), based on the comparison between observed and predicted subsurface drain flows and nitrate-nitrogen losses via drainage. The site was under conventional drainage management, consisting of two replications of three tile drain spacings—5m, ...