Compost Amendment Impact on Soil Physical Quality Estimated from Hysteretic Water Retention Curve

Abstract

Capacity-based indicators of soil physical quality (SPQ) and pore distribution parameters were proposed to assess the effects of compost amendment but their determination was limited to desorption water retention experiments. This study also considered the pore size distribution obtained from adsorption experiments to establish the effectiveness of compost amendment in modifying the physical and hydrological attributes of a sandy loam soil. Repacked soil samples with different compost to soil ratios, r, were subjected to a wetting–drying cycle, and the water retention data were fit to the van Genuchten model to obtain the pore volume distribution functions. The soil bulk density was minimally affected by the wetting–drying cycle but a significant negative correlation with r was obtained. The sorption process involved larger and more heterogeneous pores than the desorption one thus resulting in an estimation of the air capacity SPQ indicators (Pmac and AC) that were higher for the wetting–water retention curve (WWRC) than the drying one (DWRC). The opposite result was found for the water storage SPQ indicators (PAWC and RFC). In general, SPQ indicators and pore distribution parameters were generally outside the optimal range but estimates from the DWRC were closer to the reference values. The water entry potential increased and the air entry potential decreased with an increase in the compost rate. Significant correlations were found between the SPQ indicators estimated from the DWRC and r but the same result was not obtained for the WWRC. It was concluded that compost addition could trigger positive effects on soil hydrological processes and agronomic service as both water infiltration during wetting and water storage during drying are favored. However, the effectiveness of the sorption process for evaluating the physical quality of soils needs further investigation.

Influence of compost amendment rate and level of compaction on the hydraulic functioning of soils

“…There has also been widespread interest in improving the functions of urban soil post-construction by incorporating compost into the compacted soil (Albiach et al, 2000;Crogger, 2005;Kranz et al, 2020Kranz et al, , 2022 with typical application rates up to 50% compost by volume. Compost addition is known to influence water retention (Bondì et al, 2022) and improve soil water-holding capacity (Crogger, 2005;Curtis & Claassen, 2005;Minasny & Mcbratney, 2018). However, improvements in soil water-holding capacity depend on the soil texture, where coarser-textured soils show more improvements, followed by medium and then fine-textured soil (Minasny & Mcbratney, 2018).…”

Advances in Ecohydrology for Water Resources Optimization in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas

“…The collected manuscripts were summarized by grouping them into three main topics to show research advances in specific fields, such as (1) transpiration/evapotranspiration [9,10,13,14], (2) groundwater or deep percolation [8,15,16], and (3) miscellaneous [11,12,17]. The research aims and main results were also summarized.…”

“…This Special Issue collected 10 original contributions focused on ecohydrology. Almost all concerned field investigations took place in arid and semi-arid areas [8][9][10][11][13][14][15][16], although some of them were from more humid environments [12]; only one investigated the optimization of water resource in a controlled laboratory environment [17]. Furthermore, half of them were developed in China [8][9][10][11]14], while the rest were from Kansas, United States [15], Korea [16], Brazil [12] and Mediterranean Europe (Italy and Portugal) [13,17].…”

“…Finally, Bondì et al [17] investigated the reliability of indicators of soil physical quality, including pore-size distribution parameters, to assess the effectiveness of compost amendment on hysteretic water retention curves in a sandy loam soil. Hysteresis refers to a soil-attributed phenomenon wherein the soil water content at a given pressure head is higher during drying than during wetting.…”

“…The main goal of this Special Issue (SI) was to present advanced research and applications in ecohydrology, with a focus on water resources' optimization in arid and semi-arid areas. Overall, the contributions gathered in this SI account for the ecohydrology of (i) natural areas, including deserts [8,9], wetlands [10], grasslands-rangelands [11] and forests [12], (ii) cultivated areas, including orchards [13] or arable lands [14], or (iii) without specific focus on the environment-vegetation interaction [15][16][17]. most common contributions were studies on groundwater and transpiration-evapotranspiration.…”