Conclusions
For the range of volcanic soils investigated, water retention analysis showed that near-saturation and field capacity water contents are more representative of the whole water retention behavior than the most commonly used “wilting point” water content. The Integral Retention Index, IRI, showed a strong relationship with the different environments; the index also showed a clear relationship with the andic properties (as estimated by Alo+1/2Feo; r=0.84), the soils with the lowest Alo+1/2Feo and also a high content in pumice departing from this linear relationship. This is especially relevant because IRI, has a very important physical meaning with respect to ecosystem fertility.
The fraction of the pore space occupied by macroporosity, inferred from the parameter φ 1, was relevant for half the soils investigated; however, it was not possible to detect any correlation with other environmental variables.
The IRI index, related to static hydrological properties, was approximately normally distributed. The distribution of the φ 1 parameters, related to dynamic hydrological properties, was far from normality as it was better approximated by others distributions (i.e. Cauchy) than the log-normal.
Image analysis showed the great complexity of the pore system of these volcanic soils which generally present multimodal pore size distributions.
Comparison between the results from these two techniques suggests that hydrological pore analysis is more suitable to represent pore systems in the size range lower than 500 µm while a much more detailed description is provided by image analysis for pores larger than 500 µm. Specifically, the water retention approach is feasible in describing only simple pore size distribution while fails in describing more complex porous systems with micro ad macropores.
The overall results reported in the present chapter confirm the necessity of different approaches in order to thoroughly understand the soil pore system, especially when complex volcanic material is examined.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amemiya T (1985). Advanced Econometrics. Oxford, Basil Blackwell
Armas-Espinel S, Hernández-Moreno JM, Muñoz-Carpena R, Regalado CM (2003). Physical properties of “sorriba” cultivated volcanic soils from Tenerife in relation to diagnostic Andic parameters. Geoderma 117:297–311
Bartoli F, Arnalds O, Buurman P, Garcia-Rodeja E, Hernandez-Moreno J, Oskarsson H, Pinheiro J, Quantin P, Stoops G, Terribile F, van Oort F (2006). Introduction (this book)
Basile A, De Mascellis R (1999). Change of hydraulic properties and solute transport parameters. Modelling of transport processes in soils. Int Workshop of EurAgEng’s Field of interest on Soil and Water. Feyen & K. Wiyo (ed), Leuven, pp. 267–275
Basile A, Ciollaro G, Coppola A (2003a). Hysteresis in soil water characteristics as a key to interpreting comparisons of laboratory and field measured hydraulic properties. Water Resources Res 39:1355–1366
Basile A, Mele G, Terribile F (2003b). Soil hydraulic behaviour of a selected benchmark soil involved in the landslide of Sarno 1998. Geoderma 117:331–346
Box GEP, Cox DR (1964). An Analysis of Transformations. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 211–243, discussion 244–252
Box GEP, Tiao GC (1973). Bayesian Inference in Statistical Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, New York
Bruand A, Prost R (1987). Effect of water content on the fabric of a soil material: an experimental approach. J Soil Sci 38:461–472
Ciollaro G, Romano N (1995). Spatial variability of the hydraulic properties of a volcanic soil. Geoderma 65:263–282
Colmet-Daage F, Cucalon F, Delaune M, Gautheyrou J, Gatheyrou M, Moreau B (1967). Cah ORSTOM. Ser Pedol 5:1–38
Colmet-Daage F, Gautheyrou J, Gatheyrou M, de Kimpe C, Sieffermann G, Delaune M, Fusil G (1970). Cah ORSTOM. Ser Pedol 8:113–172
Coppola A (2000). Unimodal and bimodal descriptions of hydraulic properties for aggregated soils. Soil Sci Soc Am J 64:1252–1262
Draper NR, Smith H (1981). Applied regression analysis. John Wiley & Sons, New York
Durner W (1994). Hydraulic conductivity estimation for soils with heterogeneous pore structure. Water Resources Research 30:211–223
Fontes J, Goncalves M, Pereira L (2004). Andosols of Terceira, Azores: measurement and significance of soil hydraulic properties. Catena 56:145–154
Hays W L (1981). Statistics. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York
Hopmans JW, Overmars B (1986). Presentation and application of an analytical model to describe soil hydraulic properties. Journal of Hydrology 87:135–143
Horgan GW (1998). Mathematical morphology for analysing soil structure from images. Eur J Soil Sci 49:161–173
Horowitz J, Hillel D (1987). A theoretical approach to the areal distribution of soil surface conductivity. Soil Sci 143:231–240
Klute A (1986). Water retention: Laboratory methods. In: Klute (ed) Methods of soil analysis, Part I, 2nd edn. Agron Monogr, 9, ASA and SSSA, Madison, pp 635–662
Klute A, Dirksen C (1986). Hydraulic conductivity and diffusivity: Laboratory methods. In: Klute (ed) Methods of soil analysis, Part I, 2nd edn. Agron Monogr, 9, ASA and SSSA, Madison, pp 687–734
Lawrence GP (1977) Measurement of pore sizes in fine-textured soils: a review of existing techniques. J Soil Sci 28:527–540
Maeda T, Takenaka H, Warkentin BP (1977). Physical properties of allophane soils. Adv Agr 29:229–264
Marshall TJ, Holmes JW, Rose CW (1996) Soil Physics, 3rd edn. Cambridge University press, Cambridge
Mele G, Basile A, Leone AP, Moreau E, Terribile F, Velde B (1999). The study of soil structure by coupling serial sections and 3D image analysis. Modelling of transport processes in soils. Int Workshop of EurAgEng’s Field of inter on Soil and Water. Feyen & Wiyo (ed), Leuven, pp 103–117
Mele G, Terribile F, Moreau E (2000). Soil structure characterisation of selected European volcanic soils. Agricoltura Mediterranea 130:247–256
Misono S, Terasawa S, Kishita A, Sudo S (1953). Bull Natl Inst Agric Sci 2:95–124
Miyazaki T (1993). Water flow in soils. Marcel Dekker, New York
Moldrup P, Yoshikawa S, Olesen T, Komatsu T, Rolston DE (2003). Gas Diffusivity in Undisturbed Volcanic Ash Soils: Test of Soil-Water-Characteristic-Based Prediction Models. Soil Sci Soc Am J 67:41–51
Moreau E (1997). Etude de la morphologie et de la topologie 2D et 3D d’un sol argileux par analyse d’images. PhD Thesis. Université de Poitiers, France, pp 328
Mualem Y (1986). Hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils: Prediction and formulas. In: Klute (ed) Methods of soil analysis, Part I, 2nd edn. Agron Monogr, 9, ASA and SSSA, Madison, pp 799–823
Murphy CP (1985). Faster methods of liquid-phase acetone replacement of water from soils and sediments prior to resin impregnation. Geoderma 35:39–45
Nanzyo M, Shoji S, Dahlgren R (1993). Physical characteristics of volcanic ash soils. In: Shoji, Nanzio, Dahlgren (eds) Volcanic Ash Soils: Genesis, Properties and Utilization. Development in Soil Science, vol. 17, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 189–201
Pagliai M (1988). Soil porosity aspects. International Agrophysics 4:215–232
Pagliai M, La Marca G, Lucamente G, Genovese L (1984). Effects of zero and conventional tillage on the length and irregularity of elongated pores in a clay loam soil under viticulture. Soil and Tillage Research 4:433–444
Patel JK, Read CB (1996). Handbook of the normal distribution. Dekker, New York
Ritter A, Muñoz-Carpena R, Regalado CM, Vanclooster M, Lambot S (2004). Analysis of alternative measurement strategies for the inverse optimization of the hydraulic properties of a volcanic soil. Journal of Hydrology 295:124–139
Ross PJ, Smettem RJ (1993). Describing soil hydraulic properties with sums of simple functions. Soil Sci Soc Am J 57:26–29
Sen A, Srivastava M (1990). Regression Analysis. Theory, Methods and Applications. Chapman & Hall, New York
Serra J (1982). Image analysis and mathematical morphology. Academic Press, London
Serra J (1988). Image analysis and mathematical morphology, vol 2, Theoretical advances. Academic Press, London
Sills ID, Aylmore LAG, Quirk JP (1973). An analysis of pore size in illitekaolinite mixtures. J Soil Sci 24:480–490
Smettem KRJ, Kirkby C (1990). Measuring the hydraulic properties of a stable aggregated soil. Journal of Hydrology 117:1–13
Van Genuchten MTh (1980). A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. Soil Sci Soc Am J 44:892–898
Van Genuchten MTh, Nielsen DR (1985). On describing and predicting the hydraulic properties of unsaturated soils. Annales Geophysicae 3:615–628
Vogel T, Cislerova M (1988). On the reliability of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity calculated from the moisture retention curve. Transport in Porous Media 3:1–15
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Basile, A., Coppola, A., De Mascellis, R., Mele, G., Terribile, F. (2007). A comparative analysis of the pore system in volcanic soils by means of water-retention measurements and image analysis. In: Arnalds, Ó., Óskarsson, H., Bartoli, F., Buurman, P., Stoops, G., García-Rodeja, E. (eds) Soils of Volcanic Regions in Europe. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48711-1_35
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48711-1_35
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-48710-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48711-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)