Hydogeologic Study of Water Flow Patterns
11/12/2007
In recent years, much attention has been given to the understanding of the mechanisms associated with the transport of contaminants to groundwater from the leaching of nutrients and pesticides into ground water. High concentrations of these constituents make the ground water unsuitable for drinking. In general, it is difficult to predict water and solute transport in the subsurface systems due, in part, to the complicated composition of natural soil formations. This is even more difficult in soils that contain preferential flow pathways due to the presence of cracks, fissures, wormholes and root channels. The flow patterns under different simulated rainfall rates was studied in the SUNY New Paltz’s Hydrogeology Lab on undisturbed soil samples taken from the sandy-loam soil from Brook Farm of New Paltz. This work was funded by the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program.
Field preparation of undisturbed soil sample from Brook Farm.
Adam, Tony and Dan securing soil sample for transport.
Laboratory experiment simulating rainfall to study water flow through soil Macropores in Hydrogeology Lab.
