Tinted detail of a photo: Close-up of reddish brown soil packed with rounded pebbles in cream, yellow and brown, crossed by grey tree roots.
SSS
Soil System Sciences

soil water

Monday paper: Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin)

Richard, A., Galle, S., Descloitres, M., Cohard, J.-M., Vandervaere, J.-P., Séguis, L., and Peugeot, C. 2013. Interplay of riparian forest and groundwater in the hillslope hydrology of Sudanian West Africa (northern Benin), Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17, 5079-5096. DOI: 10.5194/hess-17-5079-2013. Abstract Forests are thought to play an important role in the regional dynamics of the …[Read More]

Soil color never lies

Often, soil color is described using general terms such as “brown”, “red”, “dark”, etc. When I talk about this issue for the first time with my students of Soil Science, I use to ask them how to describe the color of a soil sample. Normally, in a few seconds, I get a list of color …[Read More]

Monday paper: Subcritical water extraction to isolate kinetically different soil nitrogen fractions

Sleutel, S., Kader, M. A., Demeestere, K., Walgraeve, C., Dewulf, J., De Neve, S. 2013. Subcritical water extraction to isolate kinetically different soil nitrogen fractions. Biogeosciences 10, 7435-7447. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-7435-2013 Abstract Soil organic N is largely composed of inherently biologically labile proteinaceous N and its persistence in soil is mainly explained by stabilization through binding to minerals and other soil organic matter (SOM) …[Read More]