The knowledge of the composition and fluxes of vadose zone water is essential for a wide range of scientific and practical fields, including water-use management, pesticide registration, fate of xenobiotics, monitoring of disposal from mining and industries, nutrient management of agricultural and forest ecosystems, ecology, and environmental protection. Nowadays, water and solute flow can be monitored using either in situ methods or minimally invasive geophysical measurements. In situ information, however, is necessary to interpret most geophysical data sets and to determine the chemical composition of seepage water. Therefore, we present a comprehensive review of in situ soil water extraction methods to monitor solute concentration, solute transport, and to calculate mass balances in natural soils. We distinguished six different sampling devices: porous cups, porous plates, capillary wicks, pan lysimeters, resin boxes, and lysimeters. For each of the six sampling devices we discuss the basic principles, the advantages and disadvantages, and limits of data acquisition. We also give decision guidance for the selection of the appropriate sampling system. The choice of material is addressed in terms of potential contamination, filtering, and sorption of the target substances. The information provided in this review will support scientists and professionals in optimizing their experimental set-up for meeting their specific goals.

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Exact information about soil water flow is needed to quantify solute transfer within the unsaturated zone. Water flux densities are often measured indirectly, e.g., with water-balance, water content-change, or tracer methods, and, therefore, often predicted with notable uncertainties. Over the last years, direct lysimetry methods have been increasingly used to study water and solute migration in soil profiles. A large weighable lysimeter is the best method to obtain reliable drainage data, but it requires relatively high investment and maintenance expenses. To reduce cost and improve comparability with undisturbed sites, a new technology to collect large monolithic soil columns with a surface area of 0.5-2 m 2 and a depth of 1-3 m as well as a containerized polyethylene (PE-HD) lysimeter station were developed. In addition, the station was fitted with a new high-precision weighing technique. In this paper, the latter is demonstrated with data from a newly constructed gravitation lysimeter. Besides recording rainfall and seepage, its weighing precision makes it possible to register mass input by dew, fog, or rime. It also permits a very accurate calculation of actual evapotranspiration. Because this new type of lysimeter allows a very high temporal resolution, it is ideally suited to develop and test models for soil hydrologic processes.

[1] Optimization of water use in agriculture and quantification of percolation from landfills and watersheds require reliable estimates of vadose zone water fluxes. Current technology is limited primarily to lysimeters, which directly measure water flux but are expensive and may in some way disrupt flow, causing errors in the measured drainage. We report on design considerations and field tests of an alternative approach, passive wick fluxmeters, which use a control tube to minimize convergent or divergent flow. Design calculations with a quasi-three-dimensional model illustrate how convergence and divergence can be minimized for a range of soil and climatic conditions under steady state and transient fluxes using control tubes of varying heights. There exists a critical recharge rate for a given wick length, where the fluxmeter collection efficiency is 100% regardless of the height of the control tube. Otherwise, convergent or divergent flow will occur, especially when the control tube height is small. While divergence is eliminated in coarse soils using control tubes, it is reduced but not eliminated in finer soils, particularly for fluxes <100 mm/a. Passive wick fluxmeters were tested in soils ranging from nonvegetated semiarid settings in the United States to grasslands in Germany and rain-fed crops in New Zealand and the South Pacific. Where side-by-side comparisons of drainage were made between passive wick fluxmeters and conventional lysimeters in the United States and Germany, agreement was very good. In semiarid settings, drainage was found to depend upon precipitation distribution, surface soil, topographic relief, and the type and amount of vegetation. In Washington State, United States, soil texture dominated all factors controlling drainage from test landfill covers. As expected, drainage was greatest (>60% annual precipitation) from gravel surfaces and least (no drainage) from silt loam soils. In Oregon and New Mexico, United States, and in New Zealand, drainage showed substantial spatial variability. The New Mexico tests were located in semiarid canyon bottom terraces, with flash flood prone locations having extremely high drainage/precipitation ratios. In the wettest environments, drainage was found to be closely linked to the rate and duration of precipitation events.