Vyoma Nenuji

Influence of Pedogenic Carbonate on the Physical and Hydrologic Properties of a Semi-arid Soil

The goal of this project is to determine the nature and magnitude of changes in the hydrologic properties of arid soils with increasing amounts of pedogenic calcium carbonate. The amount and morphology of the calcium carbonate in arid soils varies laterally and vertically with changes in the age of the soils, thus the hydrologic properties also vary systematically The calcium carbonate cements soil particles changing the apparent texture of the soil horizon and thus other soil properties such as structure, porosity, moisture retention, and unsaturated and saturated hydraulic conductivity also change significantly. There has been no systematic study of the impact of increasing amounts of calcium carbonate on the hydrologic properties of semi-arid soils. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide a basis for developing more accurate pedotransfer functions, which are the main methods for obtaining soil hydrologic properties of rangeland soils.