Impact of soil structure on character of water flow and solute transport in soil environment

Good knowledge of soil hydraulic properties is required for successful solution of pollutant transport, hydrological modeling of catchments and prediction of the plant production in soil. The submitted project is aimed at experimental, analytical and numerical investigation of theory that multimodal character of soil pore size distribution and hierarchical pore composition influence not only the shape of soil hydraulic properties, but also total character of water flow and solute transport in soil porous media. In many cases, the soil porous system cannot be treated as one continuum (usual approach), but as two continuums assuming either appearance of zones with immobile water and zones with mobile water or two continuums with different soil hydraulic properties characterizing preferential flow. Another objective of this project is evaluation of agricultural management impact on soil properties and consequently on water flow and contaminant transport. The research will provide complex view on transport processes in soils that is important especially for ground water protection.