Effect of soil water repellency on soil hydraulic properties estimated under dynamic conditions

SummarySoil research done over the past decades has proven that water repellent soils are widespread in all climates. Water repellency enhances the leaching of contaminants in the unsaturated zone by introducing preferential flow. In order to predict soil water fluxes in the unsaturated zone the accurate knowledge of the soil hydraulic properties (SHP) is mandatory. In this study the effect of water repellency on both imbibition and drainage SHP was studied. Inflow/outflow experiments were conducted in the laboratory for two soils and two artificially created hydrophobic mixtures. In the inflow/outflow experiments the pressure head at the bottom of the soil column was increased/decreased and the estimated SHP functions were obtained by means of inverse modeling. Inflow/outflow experiments were also conducted using ethanol instead of water in order to estimate the effect of liquid wetting properties on the estimated characteristic curves of the materials under study. The results showed that the water retention functions and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity functions estimated from the dynamic experiments are strongly dependent on the degree of water repellency and the wetting/drying process.

► Flow experiments were performed with ethanol and water on water repellent soils.
► Effective soil hydraulic properties obtained by inverse modeling.
► Water repellency contributes to an enhanced retention curve hysteresis.