Quantifying Mechanistic Detachment Parameters Due to Humic Acids in Biological Soil Crusts

Atheer A. Abbood and Abdul-Sahib T. Al-Madhhachi
Additional contact information
Atheer A. Abbood: Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad 10047, Iraq
Abdul-Sahib T. Al-Madhhachi: Department of Water Resources Engineering, College of Engineering, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad 10047, Iraq

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-22

Abstract: Humic acid (HA) is a material that could be used to decrease erosion and improve soil structure. It is also known that biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have a major role in soil stabilization, but the mechanism is not well understood in the presence of HA, especially with mechanistic soil detachment rate parameters ( b 0 and b 1 ) of the Wilson model, where b 0 is the dimensional soil detachment parameter and b 1 is the dimensional soil threshold parameter. Therefore, this study intends to (1) investigate the effect of different humic acid (HA) concentrations (0%, 4%, and 8%) on mechanistic soil detachment rate parameters ( b 0 and b 1 ,) in the Tigris Riversides of the Gheraiat region, Baghdad City, Iraq, of the crusted versus uncrusted soils using a small scale model of the jet erosion tests (mini-JET) at different curing periods (1 week, 2 weeks, and 3 weeks), and (2) examine the impact of HA on b 0 and b 1 parameters versus some soil characteristics, such as electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity, and soil organic matter for uncrusted and crusted soils. Thirty-six undisturbed soil specimens (18 for crusted soils and 18 for uncrusted soils) were acquired from the Tigris Riverbank. On these specimens, the mini-JET was used to determine the mechanistic cohesive soil erodibility parameters b 0 and b 1 . The results showed that the value of b 0 decreased up to 60% with an increase in curing times for crusted soils until they reached their optimum values at 2 weeks. There was no consistent pattern for b 1 at different curing times. As the concentration of HA increased, the value of b 0 decreased up to 86% and 99% for crusted and uncrusted soils, respectively. HA significantly improved electrical conductivity, exchange capacity, and organic matter in the soil and reduced soil erodibility. This study provides the benefits of adding HA to the soils as a soil stabilizer using a low-cost technique, which is the JET instrument.

Keywords: humic acids; biological soil crusts; mechanistic soil erodibility parameters; soil stabilization; jet erosion test (JET) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/11/1180/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/11/1180/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:11:p:1180-:d:671159

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().