Effect of soil organic carbon on unsaturated earth properties
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Effect of soil organic carbon on unsaturated earth properties Guruprasad M. Hugar1 Received: 29 November 2019 / Revised: 4 July 2020 / Accepted: 6 July 2020 © Society for Environmental Sustainability 2020
Abstract Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a multifaceted and assorted combination of constituents. Due to anthropogenic actions, the earth’s SOC is lost, thus affecting soils various properties. The column and channel studies were conducted to evaluate the effect on the unsaturated earth properties by artificially entailing SOC using organic-based (natural/industrial) wastes. Natural decayed plant/ animal remains known as humus; industrial wastes like press mud, bagasse ash, and fly ash were used as the source of SOC to amend with four soils i.e. black cotton (BC), red, marshy and mountainous. Tests were designed based on response surface methodology through central composite rotatable design for five properties defined by the author as “Soil hydraulic property”—representing the effect of SOC on water holding capacity and hydraulic conductivity; “Soil perviousness property”-representing the effect of SOC on infiltration and porosity; “Soil aggregation property”—representing the effect of SOC on plasticity index and bulk density; “Soil and water conservation property”—representing the effect of SOC on erosion and runoff; “Soil stability property”—representing the effect of SOC on shrinkage limit and friability index. The developed, empirical models correlated humus for BC soil, bagasse ash for marshy soil, fly ash for red and mountainous soils, as the best soil-amendment combinations. Drained water quality was analyzed and the obtained results were within the tolerance limits, implying no harm to the quality of water seeping through amended earth. Keywords Soil organic carbon · Water holding capacity · Hydraulic conductivity · Porosity and soil friability
Introduction Soil organic carbon (SOC) has a vital role in soil structure stabilization; along with the supply of nutrients to microbes it also upholds the pH of soil. Scientists and policymakers have coined the term “soil quality” encompassing the functions of the earth in protecting watersheds and groundwater from municipal wastes and agricultural chemicals along with sequestering carbon which would otherwise be lost as greenhouse gas leading to global climate change (Minasnya et al. 2017). Anthropogenic activities release the carbon from soil to the atmosphere (Keiluweit et al. 2015) and erosion takes off the carbon from the soil into water bodies. In India top 30 cm of earth holds 9 petagrams (Pg) of carbon (Zomer et al. 2017; Kenye et al. 2019). SOC is always itinerant in various molecular forms (Kane 2015). Vegetation sequesters the * Guruprasad M. Hugar [email protected] 1
Department of Civil Engineering, Government Engineering College, Raichur, Karnataka 584135, India
atmospheric carbon, no sooner the flora dies, autotrophic (algae and cyanobacteria) and heterotrophic (fungi and arthrobacter bacteria) microbes synthesize it i
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