Publications related to Vadose zone

Effects of Unsaturated Flow on Salt Distributions in Tidally Influenced Coastal Unconfined Aquifers

Unsaturated flow influences both the seawater extent under steady-state conditions and the propagation of tides in coastal aquifers. However, its effects on salt distributions in tidally influenced coastal aquifers are little investigated. The present stud ...

2023

Watertable fluctuations in coastal unconfined aquifers with a sloping sea boundary: Vertical flow and dynamic effective porosity effects

David Andrew Barry, Zhaoyang Luo

Interactions between the tide and sloping sea boundary make watertable fluctuations in coastal unconfined aquifers complicated. Based on a perturbation method, we derived a new analytical solution to predict watertable fluctuations for coastal unconfined a ...

2023

Pore-pressure coefficients for unsaturated soils: generalized effective stress approach

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Angelica Tuttolomondo

Geotechnical problems with total stress changes occurring rapidly relative to the soil consolidation time can be conveniently addressed using an effective stress-based approach. For saturated states, analytical formulations of pore-pressure coefficients ad ...

CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING2023

Approximate analytical solutions for assessing the effects of unsaturated flow on seawater extent in thin unconfined coastal aquifers

David Andrew Barry, Zhaoyang Luo

This study develops approximate analytical solutions for seawater extent in unconfined coastal aquifers considering unsaturated flow, and assuming steady-state, sharp-interface conditions, for both constant flux (flux-controlled aquifers) and constant head ...

2022

Dynamic Effective Porosity Explains Laboratory Experiments on Watertable Fluctuations in Coastal Unconfined Aquifers

David Andrew Barry, Zhaoyang Luo

Watertable fluctuations are a characteristic feature of coastal unconfined aquifers. They interact with the vadose zone creating a dynamic effective porosity, for which a new (empirical) expression is proposed based on a dimensionless parameter related to ...

2023

Role of Stress History on the Swelling-Shrinkage Behavior of Compacted Scaly Clay

Alessio Ferrari

Compacted scaly clays are complex geomaterials widely used for the realization of dam cores and waste dump liners. This research aims to investigate the swelling/shrinkage behavior of these geomaterials subjected in an oedometric cell to complex hydromecha ...

ASCE-AMER SOC CIVIL ENGINEERS2022

Climate change effects on groundwater recharge and temperatures in Swiss alluvial aquifers

Adrien Michel

Climate change will have both quantitative and qualitative effects on groundwater resources. These impacts differ for aquifers in solid and unconsolidated rock, in urban or rural locations, and in the principal processes of groundwater recharge. Having kno ...

2021

Watertable fluctuation-induced variability in the water retention curve: Sand column experiments

David Andrew Barry, Zhaoyang Luo

The soil water retention curve (WRC), describing the relation between the soil water content and its corresponding capillary pressure, relies not only on whether drying or wetting occurs but also on the pore scale water flow velocity. Here, we investigated ...

2020

Carbon turnover and microbial activity in an artificial soil under imposed cyclic drainage and imbibition

Tatjana Milojevic

Water table fluctuations generate temporally and spatially dynamic physicochemical conditions that drive biogeochemical hot spots and hot moments in the vadose zone. However, their role in the cycling of soil C remains poorly known. Here, we present result ...

2020

The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone

Paolo Benettin

The time that water takes to travel through the terrestrial hydrological cycle and the critical zone is of great interest in Earth system sciences with broad implications for water quality and quantity. Most water age studies to date have focused on indivi ...

2019

An experimental investigation on the water retention behaviour of a silty soil for the computation of the lateral earth thrust on a retaining wall

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Gianluca Speranza

Retaining structures often interact with soils in unsaturated conditions and their performance is influenced by environmental actions. Currently, geotechnical analysis and design approaches mainly consider the soils either totally dry or totally saturated. ...

E3S Web of Conferences2019

Hydro-mechanical characterization of gas shales and Opalinus Clay shale in partially saturated conditions

Alberto Minardi

An experimental study on the behaviour of shales in partially water saturated conditions is presented in this thesis. The Opalinus Clay shale and gas shales from different unconventional reservoirs have been studied. Opalinus Clay is currently considered a ...

EPFL2018

Temporal variability of secondary processes in alkaline geothermal waters associated to granitic rocks: the Caldes de Boi geothermal system (Spain)

Maria Pilar Asta Andres

The Caldes de Boi geothermal waters show important differences in pH (6.5-9.6) and temperature (15.9 degrees C-52 degrees C) despite they have a common origin and a very simple circuit at depth (4km below the recharge area level). These differences are the ...

Univ Barcelona2017

Modelling landslides in unsaturated slopes subjected to rainfall infiltration using material point method

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Samila Sanjeevanie Bandara

This paper presents a dynamic fully coupled formulation for saturated and unsaturated soils that undergo large deformations based on material point method. Governing equations are applied to porous material while considering it as a continuum in which the ...

Wiley-Blackwell2016

Modeling of Hydrological Processes in Arid Agricultural Regions

David Andrew Barry

Understanding of hydrological processes, including consideration of interactions between vegetation growth and water transfer in the root zone, underpins efficient use of water resources in arid-zone agriculture. Water transfers take place in the soil-plan ...

2015

Modeling reactive transport of reclaimed water through large soil columns with different low-permeability layers

David Andrew Barry

The efficacy of different proportions of silt-loam/bentonite mixtures overlying a vadose zone in controlling solute leaching to groundwater was quantified. Laboratory experiments were carried out using three large soil columns, each packed with 200-cm-thic ...

Springer Verlag2015

Using Heat as a Tracer to Characterize Streambed Water Fluxes of the Brenta River (Italy)

Andrea Rinaldo

This work deals with the characterization of the spatial and temporal variability of water exchange fluxes from/to the Brenta river streambed (Veneto, Italy), critically important to regional water resources management. The aquifer system is structurally q ...

Springer Int Publishing Ag2015

The importance of hydraulic groundwater theory in catchment hydrology: The legacy of Wilfried Brutsaert and Jean-Yves Parlange

Alexis Berne

Based on a literature overview, this paper summarizes the impact and legacy of the contributions of Wilfried Brutsaert and Jean-Yves Parlange (Cornell University) with respect to the current state-of-the-art understanding in hydraulic groundwater theory. F ...

American Geophysical Union2013

Evaporation from a shallow water table: Diurnal dynamics of water and heat at the surface of drying sand

Marc Parlange, Ivan Lunati, Chad Higgins, Scott W. Tyler

Accurate estimates of water losses by evaporation from shallow water tables are important for hydrological, agricultural, and climatic purposes. An experiment was conducted in a weighing lysimeter to characterize the diurnal dynamics of evaporation under n ...

Amer Geophysical Union2013

Capillary effect on watertable fluctuations in unconfined aquifers

David Andrew Barry

Parlange and Brutsaert [1987] derived a modified Boussinesq equation to account for the capillary effect on watertable dynamics in unconfined aquifers. Barry et al. [1996] solved this equation subject to a periodic boundary condition. Their solution shows ...

American Geophysical Union2013