Riparian plants in arid regions face a highly variable water environment controlled by hydrological processes. To understand whether riparian plants adapt to such environments through plastic responses, we compared the root traits, biomass allocation and growth of Populus euphratica Oliv. Seedlings grown in lysimeters filled with clay or clay/river sand sediments under inundation and varying wa...

Uranium contamination of groundwater increasingly concerns rural residents depending on home wells for their drinking water in communities where uranium is a source of contamination. Established technologies to clean up contaminated aquifers are ineffective in large contaminated areas or are prohibitively expensive. Permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) are a low-cost alternative to these methods....

We investigated hydraulic constraints on water uptake by velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina Woot.) at a site with sandy-loam soil and at a site with loamy-clay soil in southeastern Arizona, USA. We predicted that trees on sandy-loam soil have less negative xylem and soil water potentials during drought and a lower resistance to xylem cavitation, and reach E(crit) (the maximum steady-state trans...

When drinking water contains excess fluoride it causes health hazards to human beings. In the present investigation the removal of fluoride has been attempted using acid activated kaolinite clay obtained from local traditional potter of Majuli river island, Assam. The clay was characterized by chemical analysis, IR, XRD data and thermal analysis. The clay was activated with conc. H2SO4. The flu...

It is surprisingly difficult to freeze water. Almost all ice that forms under "mild" conditions (temperatures > -40 degrees C) requires the presence of a nucleating agent--a solid particle that facilitates the freezing process--such as clay mineral dust, soot or bacteria. In a computer simulation, the presence of such ice nucleating agents does not necessarily alleviate the difficulties associa...

Introduction: Clay minerals are the most common alteration products of water-rock-gas interactions on Earth. Because these hydrous alteration minerals are thermodynamically stable over a wide range of P-T-x conditions [1], significant amounts of clay may have also formed in Martian environments where liquid water or water vapor was present. It has been speculated that liquid water or vapor may ...

Column experiments were conducted to study chemical factors that influence the release of clay (kaolinite and quartz minerals) from saturated Ottawa sand of different sizes (710,360, and 240 microm). A relatively minor enhancement of clay release occurred when the pH was increased (5.8 to 10) or the ionic strength (IS) was decreased to deionized (DI) water. In contrast, clay release was dramati...

Cultivating sandy soil is a promising solution to overcome the fight against hunger especially in the developing countries. The main problems of sandy soil are moisture holding capacity and nutrients deficiency. A containers experiment was carried out to study the enhancement of water productivity and crop yield of sandy soils treated with clay. The container size was 31 x 15 x 60 cm with one t...

The objective of this study was to determine the effects of water regime/soil condition (continuous flooding, saturated, and aerobic), cultivar ('Cocodrie' and 'Rondo'), and soil texture (clay and sandy loam) on rice grain yield, yield components and water productivity using a greenhouse trial. Rice grain yield was significantly affected by soil texture and the interaction between water regime ...

The Essen site has been chosen as an alternative site for nuclear waste disposal in Belgium. The soil formation involved at this site is the same as at Mol site: Boom clay. However, owing to its geographical situation closer to the sea, Boom clay at Essen presents a pore water salinity 4-5 times higher than Boom clay at Mol. This study aims at studying the effects of pore water salinity on the ...