Arid Zone Research ›› 2023, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (10): 1608-1614.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2023.10.07

• Land and Water Resources • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Equivalent pore size characteristics in the soil physical crust

LIU Guanheng1(),WU Guanyu2,LI Jiande3,WANG Jian1(),YANG Qinxia4,XUE Dong4   

  1. 1. College of Soil and Water Conservation Science and Engineering, Northwest A & F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China
    2. Shanxi Water Conservancy & Electricity Engineering Consultant Center, Xi’an 710000, Shaanxi, China
    3. Yellow River Engineering Consulting Co., Ltd., Henan 450000, Zhengzhou, China
    4. Hancheng District Soil and Water Conservation Workstation, Hancheng 714000, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2023-03-01 Revised:2023-06-04 Online:2023-10-15 Published:2023-11-01

Abstract:

Pore size in the soil physical crust directly affects soil water infiltration and gas exchange. However, few studies have investigated the changes in pore size within the soil physical crust during rainfall events. This study has utilized Lou soil as the research object and artificial rainfall simulations, with microdisk infiltration apparatus to study the infiltration of the soil physical crust under different rainfall intensities and the pore size changes. The results show that under the pressure head of -0.5 cm, the infiltration rate of the structural crust decreases with the rainfall duration and then increases after 20 min. As rainfall progresses, the proportion of large pores in the two types of crusts begins to decrease, and the proportion of medium pores increases. The proportion of small pores in the structural crust decreases at 20 min, and the proportion of medium pores in the sedimentary crust remains unchanged at 10 min. The average pore size for the two types of crusts was found to decrease with the extension of the rainfall duration. During the increase in the negative pressure head, the effective infiltration capacity of the soil crust decreased. When the soil crust developed completely, the infiltration rate tended to be stable.

Key words: soil physical crust, equivalent diameter of soil pore, artificial simulated rainfall, micro-disc infiltration instrument, permeability