Patch Scale Processes
Patch scale refers to areas of study on the order of 10-1-101 meters.
Our investigations at the patch scale include:
- Process-based modeling
- Soil layers and small scale heterogeneity
- Experiments in controlled environments
- Lysimeters
Current Research Projects
Experimental Alfalfa Hydrology
Hannah Haugen (current MS student) and other graduate students are looking into how growing alfalfa affects the hydrology in small-scale columns of basalt at the Ecotron facility in France.
1D Modeling for Alfalfa Hydrology
Hannah Haugen (current MS student) and other graduate students are using Hydrus 1-D to model how growing alfalfa affects the water balance in a soil column.
Recently Completed Research Projects
Effective representation of heterogeneity in soil hydrology
Bauser et al. (2020) explored the possibility to estimate an effective reduced one-dimensional representation based on local water content measurements in a vertical profile located in one- and two-dimensional heterogeneous media.
Electrical Resistivity Imaging (ERI)
Antonio Meira (former PhD student) used ERI to observe water flow paths in a sloping weighing lysimeter.
Observing Water Transit Time Distributions
Minseok Kim (former Postdoc) tested a method (PERTH) to directly observe time-variable water transit time distributions using a sloping weighing lysimeter.