In Situ Monitoring of Water Percolation and Solute Transport Using a Vadose Zone Monitoring System

Dahan, Ofer; Talby, Ruti; Yechieli, Yoseph; Adar, Eilon; Lazarovitch, Naftali; Enzel, Yehouda

doi:10.2136/vzj2008.0134

Cited by 74 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The VMS is designed to collect in situ real-time continuous measurements of the water contents and the temperatures in the vadose zone, using flexible time domain reflectometry probes (FTDRs) and thermocouples, respectively, and to allow frequent sampling of the sediment pore water, using vadose zone sampling ports (VSPs) (Dahan et al, , 2009Rimon et al, 2007Rimon et al, , 2011. The VSPs are essentially suction lysimeters that have been modified for operation with the VMS in deep sections of the vadose zone.…”

Section: Monitoring Sampling and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The VSPs are essentially suction lysimeters that have been modified for operation with the VMS in deep sections of the vadose zone. Pore-water sampling from unsaturated sediments is achieved by creating hydraulic continuity between the sediment and the sampling cell using a flexible porous interface (Dahan et al, 2009;Patents # US 6,956,381; US 12/222,069; EP 07706061.4; IL 193126). Detailed descriptions of the VMSs' setup and the monitoring probes used in this study can be found in previous publications by Baram et al (2012a, b).…”

Section: Monitoring Sampling and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Desiccation-crack-induced salinization in deep clay sediment

Baram

Ronen

Kurtzman

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract.A study on water infiltration and solute transport in a clayey vadose zone underlying a dairy farm waste source was conducted to assess the impact of desiccation cracks on subsurface evaporation and salinization. The study is based on five years of continuous measurements of the temporal variation in the vadose zone water content and on the chemical and isotopic composition of the sediment and pore water in it. The isotopic composition of water stable isotopes (δ 18 O and δ 2 H) in water and sediment samples, from the area where desiccation crack networks prevail, indicated subsurface evaporation down to ∼ 3.5 m below land surface, and vertical and lateral preferential transport of water, following erratic preferential infiltration events. Chloride (Cl − ) concentrations in the vadose zone pore water substantially increased with depth, evidence of deep subsurface evaporation and down flushing of concentrated solutions from the evaporation zones during preferential infiltration events. These observations led to development of a desiccation-crack-induced salinization (DCIS) conceptual model. DCIS suggests that thermally driven convective air flow in the desiccation cracks induces evaporation and salinization in relatively deep sections of the subsurface. This conceptual model supports previous conceptual models on vadose zone and groundwater salinization in fractured rock in arid environments and extends its validity to clayey soils in semi-arid environments.

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Section: Monitoring Sampling and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Monitoring Sampling and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Desiccation-crack-induced salinization in deep clay sediment

Baram

Ronen

Kurtzman

et al. 2013

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…1). Full technical descriptions of the VMS structure, performance and installation procedures can be found in other publications (Rimon et al, 2007(Rimon et al, , 2011Dahan et al, 2008Dahan et al, , 2009). For brevity, only a general description is given here.…”

Section: Monitoringmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The recent development of a vadose-zone monitoring system (VMS) enables continuous monitoring of the hydrological and chemical properties of percolating water in the deep vadose zone under agriculture settings (Turkeltaub et al, 2014(Turkeltaub et al, , 2015b and other hydrological settings (e.g., Dahan et al, 2009;Baram et al, 2013). Data collected by the system comprise direct measurements of the water-percolation fluxes and the chemical evolution of the percolating water across the entire unsaturated zone.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Real-time monitoring of nitrate transport in the deep vadose zone under a crop field – implications for groundwater protection

Turkeltaub

Kurtzman

Dahan

2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Nitrate is considered the most common non-point pollutant in groundwater. It is often attributed to agricultural management, when excess application of nitrogen fertilizer leaches below the root zone and is eventually transported as nitrate through the unsaturated zone to the water table. A lag time of years to decades between processes occurring in the root zone and their final imprint on groundwater quality prevents proper decision-making on land use and groundwaterresource management. This study implemented the vadosezone monitoring system (VMS) under a commercial crop field. Data obtained by the VMS for 6 years allowed, for the first time known to us, a unique detailed tracking of water percolation and nitrate migration from the surface through the entire vadose zone to the water table at 18.5 m depth. A nitrate concentration time series, which varied with time and depth, revealed -in real time -a major pulse of nitrate mass propagating down through the vadose zone from the root zone toward the water table. Analysis of stable nitrate isotopes indicated that manure is the prevalent source of nitrate in the deep vadose zone and that nitrogen transformation processes have little effect on nitrate isotopic signature. The total nitrogen mass calculations emphasized the nitrate mass migration towards the water table. Furthermore, the simulated pore-water velocity through analytical solution of the convection-dispersion equation shows that nitrate migration time from land surface to groundwater is relatively rapid, approximately 5.9 years. Ultimately, agricultural land uses, which are constrained to high nitrogen application rates and coarse soil texture, are prone to inducing substantial nitrate leaching.

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“…Numerous approaches have been developed to investigate the hydraulic properties of riverbed, including grain-size distribution analysis (Alyamani and Sen, 1993), in-stream methods (Cardenas and Zlotnik, 2003;Chen, 2000;Landon et al, 2001;Rosenberry, 2008), environmental tracer experiments (Anderson, 2005;Constantz, 2008;Roshan et al, 2012;Vogt et al, 2012), a vadose zone monitoring system (Dahan et al, 2007(Dahan et al, , 2009), water balance techniques (Fleckenstein et al, 2010;Kalbus et al, 2006;Shanafield and Cook, 2014), and integrated surface-groundwater numerical modelling (Boano et al, 2013;Brunner et al, 2010;Doppler et al, 2007;Lautz and Siegel, 2006). The hydraulic properties of the riverbed, which are estimated using the aforementioned methods, are mostly assumed to be constant over time in studies on riverbank filtration processes and the related surface-groundwater interactions (Baveye et al, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimum experimental design of a monitoring network for parameter identification at riverbank well fields

Wang

Pozdniakov

Shestakov

2015

Journal of Hydrology

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Keywords:Groundwater and surface water interactions Riverbank filtration Riverbed clogging Hydraulic conductivity MODFLOW s u m m a r y A steady-state flow regime in riverbank well fields is often violated by fluctuations in river stages and variations in groundwater extraction. In this study, a criterion of quasi-steady flow during filtration processes at riverbank well fields was introduced. Under the assumption of steady-state flow, an analytical approach for determining the key hydraulic parameters (aquifer transmissivity and riverbed filtration resistance) between a stream and a hydraulically connected aquifer during riverbank filtration was presented. An optimal regular observation network (consisting of the locations of monitoring wells and the observation regime), which is based on the model-oriented approach using an example of a riverbank well field near the Kuybyshev Reservoir, Russia, was designed to minimise the uncertainty in the estimates of hydraulic parameters. The analyses showed that the initial recession in the surface water levels for the simplest constant groundwater withdrawal patterns can be used to determine the key hydraulic parameters; the error in these estimated parameters was less than 7% or 12%, depending on the designed monitoring network. When comparing the two typical monitoring networks, observation line A-A that passes midway through the water supply wells performed better than observation line B-B that passes through the water supply wells when estimating the hydraulic parameters. The results of this study can be used as a reference for designing and optimising a monitoring network that aims to determine the key hydraulic parameters at riverbank well fields.

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In Situ Monitoring of Water Percolation and Solute Transport Using a Vadose Zone Monitoring System

Cited by 74 publications

References 37 publications

Desiccation-crack-induced salinization in deep clay sediment

Desiccation-crack-induced salinization in deep clay sediment

Real-time monitoring of nitrate transport in the deep vadose zone under a crop field – implications for groundwater protection

Optimum experimental design of a monitoring network for parameter identification at riverbank well fields

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