The invasion of exotic earthworms into northern temperate and boreal forests previously devoid of earthworms is an important driver of ecosystem change. Earthworm invasion can cause significant changes in soil structure and communities, nutrient cycles, and the diversity and abundance of herbaceous plants. However, the regional extent and patterns of this invasion are poorly known. We conducted...

Phosphorus (P) Index evaluations are critical to advancing nutrient management planning in the United States. However, most assessments until now have focused on the risks of P losses in surface runoff. In artificially drained agroecosystems of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, subsurface flow is the predominant mode of P transport, but its representation in most P Indices is often inadequate. We exp...

Biochar application to agricultural soils is an interesting emerging technology with promising potential for long-term carbon storage, sustainable waste disposal, and soil fertility enhancement. Extensive information exists in the literature on the highly beneficial properties of biochar. Nevertheless, systematic application of biochar on European agricultural soils may have wide ranging policy...

At the moment, the health-environmental risk analysis is used to decision-making targets in the contaminated sites management; this procedure allows to assess the quantitative health risk related to the pollutants presence in environmental compartments, as soil and waters. As regards potentially contaminated agricultural soils, the ingestion of food from vegetable and/or animal source, produced...

Soil science is a relatively new discipline which has mainly developed since the 1880s. It uses terms, methods and processes borrowed from other basic disciplines like climatology, geology, chemistry, physics and biology, but with a direct application to soils. At present, it is difficult to speak about one single science but as soil sciences, as they cover several fields including: pedology (o...

The ability of soil venting to inexpensively remove large amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from contaminated soils is well established. However, the time required using venting to remediate soils to low contaminant levels often required by state and federal regulators has not been adequately investigated. Most field studies verify the ability of a venting system to circulate air in ...

Spatial predictions of soil moisture content in arid lands are necessary for soil survey, land evaluation, hydrological modeling, land use planning and sustainable land use. Multiple-linear regression models with land use and terrain indices were developed to spatially predict soil moisture using six methods. The performance of six models was evaluated using 13 indices based on biweekly-measure...

Improved agricultural, forestry, and land management practices could be used to increase soil carbon and thereby significantly reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration. Understanding biological and edaphic processes that increase and retain soil carbon can lead to specific manipulations for enhancement of soil C sequestration. These manipulations, however, will only be suitable for adoption if they...

Interpretation and evaluation of combined measurement techniques for soil CO 2 efflux: Discrete surface chambers and continuous soil CO 2 concentration probes" [1] Soil CO 2 efflux is a large respiratory flux from terrestrial ecosystems and a critical component of the global carbon (C) cycle. Lack of process understanding of the spatiotemporal controls on soil CO 2 efflux limits our ability to ...

the determination of soil wetting front which caused by emitters is one of the important issues in designing trickle irrigation system. in this study, a mathematical model introduced in order to study the position of soil wetting front during irrigation by point emitters in homegenious soil in unsteady condition. the model solves governing differential equation of unsaturated flow in cylindrica...