Thesis (Ph. D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 471-490). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

The use of soil cement as a growth medium was examined in this study. During the monitoring, green soil cement revealed diverse ecological values. The survival rates of plants in each soil conditions were higher than 80%,which was very promising. Furthermore, the survival rates dropped when the soil density reached95%, which means soil density might influence the survival rate of plant. Plant growth rates in sandy soil were higher than that in soil cement. In particular, low soil density facilitated plant growth in sandy soil, whereas density effect was not clear to plant growth performance in soil cement. Experiments were undertaken to study the soil-water characteristics of sandy soil and soil cement in field and laboratory condition. The influence of vegetation and material density on the development of negative pore water pressure (PWP) and degree of saturation (Sr) in the studied materials was investigated. The field planting experiments proved a promising survival rate of Schefflera heptaphylla in both types of materials while sandy soil promoted better growth of the seedlings than the soil cement. From the field study, PWP and Sr of sandy soil responded noticeably and promptly to natural drying and wetting cycles. However, the responses in soil cement were relatively mild. When subjected to the same drying-wetting cycles, PWP responded more slowly and to a smaller magnitude compared with that of soil cement. In addition, Sr changed little in soil cement. An increase in the density of the sandy soil promoted rapid development of negative PWP, while an opposite trend was observed for soil cement. Attempts have been made to explain the observations from the perspectives of material permeability and change in water content during a drying period in both soil types. Furthermore, in sandy soil, the development of PWP (with a measurement limit of -90 kPa) was minimally affected by the presence of vegetation, while vegetation noticeably helped the development of negative PWP in the soil cement. Bounds of the soil-water characteristic curve of the studied materials were presented based on estimates from the drying and wetting scanning curves derived from the field monitoring. A complementary laboratory study was carried out in an environmental chamber with controllable temperature and humidity. Monitoring results from the laboratory agreed well with that obtained from the field. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity was measured using four different methods. Tension permeameters were used to measure unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in the field, using a single disc method, which depends on the measurements of sorptivity, steady state flow rate, initial and final water content (White and Perroux, 1987, 1989). Also, a double disc method was used which utilizes Wooding's (1968) equation for two different disc radii at the same tension for steady state flow rates. Undisturbed and disturbed soil cores were used to measure unsaturated hydraulic conductivity in the lab, using water retention curves with van Genuchten's equations. There were no significant differences in the mean of hydraulic conductivity between single and double disc methods in all the tensions used (0, 5, 10 and 15 cm). There were significant differences between the field methods and undisturbed soil cores in zero cm tension, and disturbed soil cores in 10 and 15 cm tension. The effect of land preparation on the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity was studied using the double disc method. Tilling has significant effects on the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity at all tensions used. The spatial variation of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity and steady state flow in different tensions using the double disc method was studied. We found exponential variogram models for unsaturated hydraulic conductivity at 5, 10 and 15 cm tensions and a random model for zero cm tension. Also, exponential models were best fitted for steady state flow corresponding to pores radii of 0.03 - 0.015 cm, 0.015 - 0.010 cm and steady state flow at 10 cm tension. A Michaelis-Menton model was used for steady state flow at 5 cm and 15 cm tension. Disc permeameters were also used to add 5 cm depth of water, bromide and dye solution at 0, 5, 10 and 15 cm tensions with three replicates. A comparison was made between field data and simulated model under the same boundary and initial conditions as in the field. Results showed that the water and bromide move deeper than the prediction of the simulated model in all tensions used. The differences were larger between simulated model and field data for both water and bromide concentrations in the lower tension and smaller in the higher tension as a result of elimination of some preferential flow paths. An equation was developed for cumulative infiltration valid for both small and large time. The parameters calculated using the developed equation closely matched the measured infiltration, and fit better than a three term series similar to the Philip equation for one-dimensional flow.

Meteorological and environmental (i.e. soil water content) data measured from semiarid watersheds (Lucky Hills and Kendall) during the summer rainy and winter periods were used to study the interrelationships between variables, and to evaluate the effects of variables on the daily estimation of actual evapotranspiration (AET). The relationship between AET and potential evapotranspiration (PET) as a function of an environmental factor was the major consideration of this research. The relationship between AET and PET as a function of soil water content as suggested by Thornthwaite-Mather, Morton and Priestley-Taylor was studied to determine its applicability to the study area. Furthermore, multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis was employed to evaluate the order of importance of the meteorological and soil water factors involved. Finally, the information gained was used for MLR model development. The results of MLR analysis showed that the combined effects of available energy, soil water content and wind speed were responsible for 77 % of the observed variations in AET at Lucky Hills watershed and 70 % at Kendall watershed during the summer rainy period. The analyses also indicated that the combined effects of available energy, vapor pressure deficit and wind speed were responsible for 70 % of the observed variations in AET at Lucky Hills watershed and 72 % at Kendall watershed during the winter period. However, the test results of three different approaches, using the relationships between AET and PET as a function of soil water content indicated some inadequacy. The low correlation between PET, AET, and soil moisture conditions raised some doubt concerning the validity of methods developed elsewhere, and indicated the effects of energy availability on the relationship between PET, AET, and soil water content regardless of the soil water condition. In contrast, agreement between observed AET and estimated AET from MLR models during the summer rainy and winter periods at both watersheds indicated that MLR models can give reasonable estimates of AET, at least under the climatic conditions in which the formulae were developed.

The feasibility of synthesizing distributed fields of remotely-sensed soil moisture by the novel application of four-dimensional data assimilation applied in a hydrological model was explored in this study. Six Push Broom Microwave Radiometer images gathered over Walnut Gulch, Arizona were assimilated into the TOPLATS hydrological model. Several alternative assimilation procedures were implemented, including a method that adjusted the statistics of the modeled field to match those in the remotely sensed image, and the more sophisticated, traditional methods of statistical interpolation and Newtonian nudging. The high observation density characteristic of remotely-sensed imagery poses a massive computational burden when used with statistical interpolation, necessitating observation reduction through subsampling or averaging. For Newtonian nudging, the high observation density compromises the conventional weighting assumptions, requiring modified weighting procedures. Remotely-sensed soil moisture images were found to contain horizontal correlations that change with time and have length scales of several tens of kilometers, presumably because they are dependent on antecedent precipitation patterns. Such correlation therefore has a horizontal length scale beyond the remotely sensed region that approaches or exceeds the catchment scale. This suggests that remotely-sensed information can be advected beyond the image area and across the whole catchment. The remotely-sensed data was available for a short period providing limited opportunity to investigate the effectiveness of surface-subsurface coupling provided by alternative assimilation procedures. Surface observations were advected into the subsurface using incomplete knowledge of the surface-subsurface correlation measured at only 2 sites. It is perceived that improved vertical correlation specification will be a need for optimal soil moisture assimilation. Based on direct measurement comparisons and the plausibility of synthetic soil moisture patterns, Newtonian nudging assimilation procedures were preferred because they preserved the observed patterns within the sampled region, while also calculating plausible patterns in unmeasured regions. Statistical interpolation reduced to the trivial limit of direct data insertion in the sampled region and gave less plausible patterns outside this region. Matching the statistics of the modeled fields to those observed provided plausible patterns, but the observed patterns within sampled area were largely lost.

In this study, the sensitivity of the C-band (5.3 GHz) with a 23° incidence angle and the Ku-band (14.85 GHz) with 35°, 55°, and 75° incidence angles to surface soil moisture content from a semiarid region were evaluated. To obtain an improved soil moisture estimation, a practical technique to reduce the influence of soil roughness and vegetation in the SAR data was developed in a study area located in the Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed, a representative site of shrub- and grass-dominated rangelands of the southwestern part of the United States. To correct for soil roughness effects, the C-band radar backscattering coefficients σ° from a wet season image were subtracted from a° derived from a dry season image. The assumption was that, in semiarid regions, the SAR data from the dry season was dependent only on the soil roughness effects. To correct for vegetation effects, an empirical relation between σ° and leaf area index was used, the latter derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper data. The results showed that when both soil roughness and vegetation effects were corrected for, the sensitivity of a° to soil moisture improved substantially. The sensitivity of σ° to soil moisture was also evaluated in agricultural fields with bare soil and periodic roughness components (planting row and furrow structures). Four types of SAR system configurations were analyzed: C-band with a 23° incidence angle and Ku-band with 35°, 55°, and 75° incidence angles. The test sites were located at the University of Arizona's Maricopa Agricultural Center, south of Phoenix, Arizona. The results showed that the sensitivity of σ° to soil moisture was strongly dependent upon the field conditions. The SAR signals were nearly insensitive to soil moisture for furrowed fields (furrow spacing ∼ 95 cm; amplitude ∼ 22 cm), but for fields with planting row structures (row spacing ∼ 24 cm; amplitude ∼ 2 cm), the SAR data were sensitive to soil moisture, particularly with the C-band at a 23° incidence angle and the Ku-band with a 35° incidence angle, regardless of the row direction.

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