Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Solute And Bacterial Transport Through Partially-Saturated Intact Soil Blocks, Edmund Perfect, Mark S. Coyne, Michael C. Sukop, Gerald R. Haszler, Virgil L. Quisenberry, Ligia Bejat

KWRRI Research Reports

Steady-state transport of water, chloride and bacteria was measured through intact blocks of Maury and Cecil soils, under partially saturated conditions. Major objectives were to determine if transport occurs uniformly or via preferential flow paths, and if soil physical properties could be used to predict breakthrough. The blocks were instrumented with TDR probes and mounted on a vacuum chamber containing 100 cells that collected eflluent. After each experiment the blocks were sampled for soil physical properties. The fluxes showed no spatial autocorrelation and the eflluent variance was not statistically different between soils. Less than 3% of the influent bacteria appeared …