Soil Thermal Properties under Contrasting
Soil Textures, Soil Moisture Regimes and
Water Quality
Pradip Adhikari, Manoj K. Shukla and John G. Mexal
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences
New Mexico State University,
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Introduction
Soil thermal properties are important for irrigation management in
Southern New Mexico as evaporation loss of water is high
To understand the coupled flow of heat and moisture in the vadose
zone
Soil thermal properties is related with the soil moisture content, soil
bulk density, soil texture, organic matter content and soil salt
concentration
Anthropogenic activates such as land management practices may
alter the soil thermal properties
Different methods are used to measure the thermal properties of
soil such as dual-probe heat pulse-KD2 Pro (Decagon Devices)
Objectives:
To quantify the thermal properties (thermal conductivity; thermal
resistivity, thermal diffusivity and volumetric heat capacity)
of loamy sand, sandy loam and sandy clay loam textured soils
using tap water and lagoon treated wastewater.
Materials and Methods
USDA-JAR
Sandy Clay Loam
(Clay)
USDA-JAR
Sandy Loam
(Loam)
West Mesa
Loamy Sand
(Sand)
http://www.google.com/imgres
Fig: Soil sampling location in different locations of New Mexico
Common shrubs,
perennial, and annual
weeds in the study site
Mesquite
Snakeweed
Little gold poppy
Creosote
Littleseed muhly
Soil Sampling and Analysis
Bulk and intact core soil samples were randomly collected from
loamy sand, sandy loam and sandy clay loam textured soils at 0-20
cm depth during Summer 2010
Core soils samples form each plots were trimmed and immediately
saturated with tapwater and wastewater
Hydraulic conductivity (K) was determined by constant head
method using both tapwater and wastewater, bulk density (BD) was
calculated using core method
The soil retention curve were obtained for each soil textures at 0.3 , -1, -3, -5, -10 and -15 bars using pressure plate apparatus
Soil thermal properties including thermal conductivity, thermal
resistivity and volumetric specific heat were measured at -0.3 , 1, -3, -5, -10 and -15 bars simultaneously before putting them in
the pressure plate apparatus using KD2 Pro (DECAGAN)
Wastewater was sampled from the holding pond and analyzed
for chemical properties pH, EC, Cl-,
NO3- and SAR.
Similarly particle size, EC, pH
and OM were also determined
using bulk soil samples
Fig. KD2 Pro with dual needle sensors
Data Analysis
All the thermal properties data and moisture content data were tested
for normality using Shapiro Wilk test at P=0.05 alpha level using
SAS
Shapiro Wilk test showed all the thermal and moisture content data
at different suctions pressure were normally distributed
T-test was performed between wastewater and tapwater treatments
at =0.05 level
Modeled Thermal Conductivity
De Vries (1963) and Cambell (1985) proposed the equation to estimate the independent
Thermal conductivity having different soil moisture content, soil bulk density and soil
texture.
= + exp[( )]
Where = thermal conductivity
X = 0.65-0.78*BD2, + 0.60BD
Y= 1.06*BD,
W=
2.6
0.5
Z = 0.03 + 0.1 BD2
E= 4, v is the volumetric water content, Cf is the clay fraction and BD is the bulk
density
Results
Soil textural, hydraulic and chemical properties of soils
Time(Years)
Sand
Loam
Clay
Time (Years)
Sand
Loam
Clay
OM
Sand
Silt
Clay
BD
--------------------------------------(%)------------------------------ (g/cm3)
0.55a
89.43 0.27a
4.19 0.12a
6.38 0.09a
1.440.02a
1.22b
80.55 0.57b
6.00 0.57b
13.72 0.57b
1.41 0.03a
0.80c
54.61 1.20c
15.33 0.88c
30.05 0.88c
1.21 0.02b
EC (1:1)
dS/m
0.25 0.01a
0.29 0.02a
0.79 0.14b
pH
Ks (WW)
(cm/h)
7.105 0.78a
6.16 1.09a
4.27 1.61c
9.09 0.15a
6.60 0.12b
7.23 0.21b
Ks (TW)
(cm/h)
8.27 2.33a
10.393.04b
6.71 4.61c
Where OM is organic mater, K s saturated hydraulic conductivity, EC is electrical conductivity BD is bulk density
Mean and standard errors of wastewater chemical properties
pH
9.550.01
EC
dS/m
Cl-
6.711.13
660.57337.60
NO3-
SAR
2.04 0.56
35.793.75
mg/L
where EC is electrical conductivity, Cl- is chloride, NO3- is nitrate, SAR is sodium adsorption ratio
Moisture Content
---------------------------------------------------Tapwater--------------------------------------------Soil Texture
saturated
-0.3 bar
-1 bar
-3 bar
-5 bar
-10 bar
-15 bar
------------------------------------cm3/cm3--------------------------------------------Sand
0.310.01a*
0.140.01a*
0.080.02a*
0.040.01a*
0.020.00a*
0.020.00a*
0.010.00a*
Loam
0.320.01a*
0.150.01a*
0.080.01a*
0.050.01a* 0.030.01a* 0.020.01a*
0.010.00a*
Clay
0.350.01b*
0.190.01b*
0.090.01a*
0.060.01a*
0.040.00a*
0.050.01b*
0.050.00a*
-------------------------------------------------Wastewater------------------------------------------Sand
0.310.01a*
0.140.01a*
0.090.01a* 0.070.01a** 0.040.01a** 0.020.01a*
0.010.01a*
Loam
0.330.01a*
0.160.01a*
0.100.01a* 0.080.01a** 0.050.01a** 0.040.01a*
0.020.01a*
Clay
0.370.01b** 0.190.01b* 0.110.01a** 0.080.01a** 0.060.01a*
0.060.01a*
0.050.01a*
Different superscript letter indicates significant differences between soil texture while different no of * indicates significance different between wastewater and tapwater
treatment at 0.05 alpha level
Volumetric Moisture Content (cm3/cm3)
Moisture Content
0.40
0.35
0.30
0.25
Tapwater
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
Volumetric Moisture Content (cm3/cm3)
0.40
0.35
0.30
Wastewater
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
0
9
Pressure (-bars)
12
15
Measured and Calculated Thermal Conductivity
Measured thermal conductivity (W/m.K)
1.8
1.6
Sand R = 0.9368
1.4
Loam R = 0.977
1.2
Clay R = 0.9239
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
Calculated thermal conductivity (W/m.K)
1.8
Thermal Conductivity (W/(mK)
Thermal Conductivity
Tapwater
2.00
1.60
1.20
0.80
0.40
0.00
Wastewater
Thermal Conductivity (W/(mK)
2.00
1.60
1.20
0.80
0.40
0.00
0
9
Pressure (-bars)
12
15
Thermal Resistivity
Tapwater
Thermal Restivity (mK/W)
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Thermal Restivity (mK/W)
2.50
Wastewater
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
0
9
Pressure (-bars)
12
15
Thermal Diffusivity
Thermal Diffusivity (mm/s)
0.80
Tapwater
0.60
0.40
0.20
Thermal Diffusivity (mm/s)
0.80
Wastewater
0.60
0.40
0.20
0
9
Pressure (-bars)
12
15
Volumetric Specific Heat Capacity
Tapwater
Volumetric Heat Capacity (MJ/(mK)
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Wastewater
Volumetric Heat Cpacity (MJ/(mK)
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
0
9
Pressure (-bars)
12
15
Conclusions
Good agreement was observed between modeled
and measured thermal conductivity
Higher values of volumetric moisture content was
for sandy clay loam soil when treated with wastewater at lower
potentials
Lower values of thermal conductivity was observed for
sandy clay loam than sandy loam and loamy sand soils
No significant difference was observed for soil thermal
properties when treated with wastewater and tapwater
Further study is necessary to observed the long term effect of
wastewater application on soil thermal properties
Acknowledgement
NMSU Agricultural Experiment Station
New Mexico Water Resource Research Institute
City of Las Cruces New Mexico
