Sa. Al Hagrey et J. Michaelson, Resistivity and percolation study of preferential flow in vadose zone at Bokhorst, Germany, GEOPHYSICS, 64(3), 1999, pp. 746-753
Traditional nondestructive resistivity techniques have been applied in comb
ination with tracer displacement and conventional soil moisture recording m
ethods [i.e., buried tensiometer and time domain reflectometry (TDR)] for s
tudying flow processes at an arable site in Bokhorst, Germany. Three water
infiltration experiments were carried out using tap water spiked with a non
reactive tracer at different concentrations. The study aimed at exploring t
he capabilities of these combined techniques for tracing the preferential m
ovement of water in the uppermost 1.5 m of the highly heterogeneous vadose
zone.
The results illustrate that the applied tensiometer and TDR techniques can
detect the relatively fast flow process at their position points and thus o
nly tentatively trace the preferential flow. The additional application of
the resistivity method can trace the preferential flow paths continuously a
long the plane of measurements. The results of the individual applied metho
ds complement and confirm each other.