Soil and Water Research, 2021 (vol. 16), issue 3
Pedogenesis problems on reclaimed coal mining sitesReview
Marko Spasić, Luboš Borůvka, Oldřich Vacek, Ondřej Drábek, Václav Tejnecký
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):137-150 | DOI: 10.17221/163/2020-SWR 
Open-cast coal mining presents a big global issue because of the large areas the mines occupy, which get entirely changed. Their ecosystems lose most of their functions, and a huge amount of fertile soil gets utterly destroyed. Reclamation is a process of returning the functions of the soil after the excavation is finished, most commonly achieved by establishing vegetation, which can sometimes be very difficult. This happens due to the physical, chemical and biological changes that occur on these sites, which are described in this paper. Also, some directions for mitigating these problems are given. Once the vegetation is successfully introduced, natural...
Effects of rock fragments on the water infiltration and hydraulic conductivity in the soils of the desert steppes of Inner Mongolia, ChinaOriginal Paper
Xiaolong Wu, Zhongju Meng, Xiaohong Dang, Ji Wang
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):151-163 | DOI: 10.17221/107/2020-SWR
Soils that contain rock fragments (particles > 2 mm in diameter) are distributed all over the world. The presence of these small rock fragments can have a great impact on soil water retention properties, as well as on the soil-water infiltration and vegetation restoration in semi-arid regions. To quantitatively describe the transport of water in stony soils, repacked soil cores were used to determine the infiltration rates for different rock fragment contents (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%) and rock fragment sizes (2-5, 5-8, 8-11, and 2-11 mm). The results showed that both the content and size of the rock fragments and their interaction significantly...
Soil pollution status of urban soils in St. Petersburg city, North-west of RussiaOriginal Paper
Vyacheslav Polyakov, Alexander Kozlov, Azamat Suleymanov, Evgeny Abakumov
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):164-173 | DOI: 10.17221/95/2020-SWR
The intensive urbanisation of terrestrial environments and industrial activity have an effect on the accumulation of risky metals in the soil and increase the toxicological risk to the terrestrial ecosystems and human health. Ninety-six topsoil samples from of St. Petersburg Russia as the source of the content of seven key risky metals (As, Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni, Cu, Hg) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been investigated. To identify the spatial distribution of the risky metals and PAHs, GIS technologies have been used. Based on the data obtained, interactive maps of urban soil pollution were made. The spatial distribution of seven metals...
Development of soil organic matter measurement systemOriginal Paper
Áron Béni, Evelin Juhász, Péter Ragán, Tamás Rátonyi, Gábor Várbíró, István Fekete
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):174-179 | DOI: 10.17221/18/2021-SWR
We managed to create a self-developed sensor system, which is based on the simultaneous reflectance measurements at a 660 and 940 nm wavelength. The ratio of the reflectance refers to the concentration of the soil organic carbon (SOC). This instrument has a calibration range of 1.19 to 6.05 SOC%. The SOC content of twenty-six soil samples was measured by the self-developed system and a standard spectrophotometric method and we found that the SOC estimation in the self-developed system had a good approximation and the differences ranged from -27.72% ~ + 6.99%. We found a strong correlation between the data of the reference measurements (R2...
The effect of soil physicochemical characteristics on zinc analysis methodsOriginal Paper
Viktoria Vona, Endre Andor Tóth, Csaba Centeri, Zsolt Giczi, Zsolt Biró, Gergely Jakab, Gabor Milics, Istvan Mihaly Kulmány, Renato Kalocsai, Attila Jozsef Kovács
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):180-190 | DOI: 10.17221/53/2020-SWR
Zn is an essential micronutrient involved in a wide variety of physiological processes. Soils are tested for zinc in many countries with several extractants. Each country has its validated methods, best-suited for its soils. The current study was designed to compare different zinc content measuring methods with seventy-one samples from Hungary. The data were first compared for the whole dataset and then in certain categories such as CaCO3-content, pH, texture and clay content. The zinc content was determined by the water extraction, KCl-EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid), Mehlich 3, CoHex (cobalt hexamine trichloride), and XRF (X-ray...
Polymer and deficit irrigation influence on water use efficiency and yield of muskmelon under surface and subsurface drip irrigationOriginal Paper
Faisal I. Zeineldin, Yousef Al-Molhim
Soil & Water Res., 2021, 16(3):191-203 | DOI: 10.17221/94/2020-SWR
Water scarcity is a major constraint facing vegetable production sustainability in open field farming of arid regions like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study was carried out in an open field of the Research and Training Station of King Faisal University in the eastern region of the Kingdom. The objective was to assess the influences of the polymer addition (PA), deficit irrigation regime (DIR), and their combination on the production and water use efficiency (WUE) of muskmelons. PA treatments of 0.0, 0.2 and 0.4% and the irrigation treatments of 100, 75 and 50% of reference evapotranspiration (ETo), were imposed throughout the growth...