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Soil physics is the study of soil's physical properties and processes. It is applied to management and prediction under natural and managed ecosystems. Soil physics deals with the dynamics of physical soil components and their phases as solids, liquids, and gases. It draws on the principles of physics, physical chemistry, engineering, and meteorology. Soil physics applies these principles to address practical problems of agriculture, ecology, and engineering. Prominent soil physicists *Edgar Buckingham (1867–1940) :The theory of gas diffusion in soil and vadose zone water flow in soil. *Willard Gardner (1883-1964) :First to use porous cups and manometers for capillary potential measurements and accurately predicted the moisture distribution above a water table. *Lorenzo A. Richards (1904–1993) :General transport of water in unsaturated soil, measurement of soil water potential using tensiometer. *John R. Philip (1927–1999) :Analytical solution to general soil water trans

Terrestrial ecotoxicity and effect factors of metals in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Sébastien Haye, Jérôme Payet

Life cycle impact assessment aims to translate the amounts of substance emitted during the life cycle of a product into a potential impact on the environment, which includes terrestrial ecosystems. This work suggests some possible improvements in assessing the toxicity of metals on soil ecosystems in life cycle assessment (LCA). The current available data on soil ecotoxicity allow one to calculate the chronic terrestrial HC50(EC50) (hazardous concentration affecting 50% of the species at their EC50 level, i.e. the level where 50% of the individuals of the species are affected) of nine metals and metalloids (As(III) or (V), Be(II), Cr(III) or (VI), Sb(III) or (V), Pb(II), Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II)). Contrarily to what is generally advised in LCIA, the terrestrial HC50 of metals shall not be extrapolated from the aquatic HC50, using the Equilibrium Partitioning method since the partition coefficient (Kd) of metals is highly variable. The experimental ecotoxicology generally uses metallic salts to contaminate artificial soils but the comparison of the EC50 or NOEC obtained for the same metal with different salts reveals that the kind of salt used insignificantly influences these values. In contrast, depending on the metallic fraction of concern, the EC50 may vary, as for cadmium: the EC50 of Folsotnia candida, expressed as free Cd in pore water is almost 2.5 orders of magnitude lower than that expressed as total metal. A similar result is obtained with Eisenia fetida, confirming the importance of metals speciation in assessing their impact on soils. By ranking the metals according to the difference between their terrestrial and aquatic HC50 values, two groups are distinguished, which match the hard soft acids and bases (HSAB) concept. This allows to estimate their affinity for soil components and potential toxicity according to their chemical characteristics. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2007

Terrestrial ecotoxicity and effect factors of metals in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Sébastien Haye

Life cycle impact assessment aims to translate the amounts of substance emitted during the life cycle of a product into a potential impact on the environment, which includes terrestrial ecosystems. This work suggests some possible improvements in assessing the toxicity of metals on soil ecosystems in life cycle assessment (LCA). The current available data on soil ecotoxicity allow one to calculate the chronic terrestrial HC50EC50 (hazardous concentration affecting 50% of the species at their EC50 level, i.e. the level where 50% of the individuals of the species are affected) of nine metals and metalloids (As(III) or (V), Be(II), Cr(III) or (VI), Sb(III) or (V), Pb(II), Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II)). Contrarily to what is generally advised in LCIA, the terrestrial HC50 of metals shall not be extrapolated from the aquatic HC50, using the Equilibrium Partitioning method since the partition coefficient (Kd) of metals is highly variable. The experimental ecotoxicology generally uses metallic salts to contaminate artificial soils but the comparison of the EC50 or NOEC obtained for the same metal with different salts reveals that the kind of salt used insignificantly influences these values. In contrast, depending on the metallic fraction of concern, the EC50 may vary, as for cadmium: the EC50 of Folsomia candida, expressed as free Cd in pore water is almost 2.5 orders of magnitude lower than that expressed as total metal. A similar result is obtained with Eisenia fetida, confirming the importance of metals speciation in assessing their impact on soils. By ranking the metals according to the difference between their terrestrial and aquatic HC50 values, two groups are distinguished, which match the hard soft acids and bases (HSAB) concept. This allows to estimate their affinity for soil components and potential toxicity according to their chemical characteristics.

2007

Uncertainties in determining microbial biomass C using the chloroform fumigation-extraction method

Daniel Scott Alessi

tested the accuracy of the chloroform fumigation-extraction method, which is commonly used to determine soil biomass C concentrations. Accurate and precise determination of total microbial biomass is important in order to characterize soil properties and to develop predictive metal transport models for soils. Two natural soils, and individual soil components, including silica sand, montmorillonite, kaolinite, a humic acid, and Bacillus subtilis bacterial cells, were fumigated for 24 h. Following the fumigation, C from fumigated and unfumigated samples was extracted using a 0.5 M K2SO4 solution. The difference between the C content in the fumigated and unfumigated samples ideally represents C due to biomass because the fumigation procedure should lyse cells and release biomass C. We observed increased C release upon fumigation for bacteria-only samples, confirming the ability of fumigation to lyse cells. There was no difference in extracted C concentration between fumigated and unfumigated samples of silica sand and of humic acid, confirming that the fumigation process does not introduce additional organic C to samples of these soil components. However, the fumigated clay samples both showed increased C release relative to the unfumigated controls, indicating that significant concentrations of the fumigant, chloroform, adsorbed onto the clay minerals studied here. Additionally, we found significant chloroform remaining in the extracts from two fumigated natural soils. Attempts to remove the chloroform from the soils or soil components prior to extraction by increasing the evacuation time, or to remove chloroform in the extracts by sparging them vigorously with nitrogen gas, both failed. This research reveals that chloroform gas may adsorb significantly to clays and the clay fraction of natural soils. Thus, the fumigation-extraction method must be corrected to account for the added chloroform C and accurately assess the concentration of biomass C in soils that contain significant concentrations of clays. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

2011

Uncertainties in determining microbial biomass C using the chloroform fumigation-extraction method

Daniel Scott Alessi

2011

Terrestrial ecotoxicity and effect factors of metals in life cycle assessment (LCA)

Sébastien Haye, Jérôme Payet

2007