The objective of this paper is to analyze the behaviour of a backscattered signalaccording to soil moisture depth over bare soils. Analysis based on experimental verticalmoisture profiles and ASAR/ENVISAT measurements has been carried out. A modifiedIEM model with three permittivity layers (0-1cm, 1-2cm, 2-5cm) has been developed andused in this study. Results show a small effect of moisture pr...

Assistant Professor, Division of Agriculture Natural Resource Management, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281; and Supervisory Soil Scientist, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, U.S. Forest Service, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85281. Abstract: Runoff and sediment was measured for a chaparral community on the Prescott National Forest in the summer of 1979...

Carbon mineralization was examined in Lakehurst and Atsion sands collected from the New Jersey Pinelands and in Pahokee muck from the Everglades Agricultural Area. Objectives were (i) to estimate the carbon mineralization capacities of acidic, xeric Pinelands soils in the absence of exogenously supplied carbon substrate (nonamended carbon mineralization rate) and to compare these activities wit...

The rhizobacterial communities of 29 pioneer plants belonging to 12 species were investigated in an alpine ecosystem to assess if plants from different species could select for specific rhizobacterial communities. Rhizospheres and unvegetated soils were collected from a floristic pioneer stage plot at 2,400 m a.s.l. in the forefield of Weisskugel Glacier (Matsch Valley, South Tyrol, Italy), aft...

In tropical rainforests, termites constitute an important part of the soil fauna biomass, and as for other soil arthropods, variations in soil composition create opportunities for niche partitioning. The aim of this study was twofold: first, we tested whether soil-feeding termite species differ in the foraging substrate; second, we investigated whether soil-feeding termites select their foragin...

An increasing demand for full spatio-temporal coverage of soil information drives the growing use of soil spectroscopy. Soil spectroscopy application performed under laboratory conditions or in-field studies in semi-arid areas have shown promising results. However, when acquiring data in temperate zones, limitations by vegetation-free coverage, variation in soil moisture and management are driv...

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of surface soil moisture on spectral reflectance in the optical domain [0.4 – 15 μm]. This work is based on lab spectral reflectance measurements of many bare soils at different moisture contents. Firstly, a classification of bare soil samples is performed according to their spectral signatures: five classes are then defined. Secondly, the soil...

In this study, two kinds of cellulose derivatives (polyanionic cellulose (PAC) and hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC)) were selected as stabilizers of Pd/Fe nanoparticles (NPs) to investigate their influences on the debromination performances of 2,2',4,4'-tretrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE47). Field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) images revealed that the cellulose-stabilized Pd/Fe...

Dryland plant ecosystems tend to exhibit bistable dynamics with two preferential configurations of bare and vegetated soils. Climate fluctuations are usually believed to act as a source of disturbance on these ecosystems and to reduce their stability and resilience. In contrast, this work shows that random interannual fluctuations of precipitation may lead to the emergence of an intermediate st...