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Assessing Amendment Treatments for Sodic Soil Reclamation in Arid Land Environments

Plugged and abandoned well pads throughout the Uintah Basin face reclamation challenges due to factors including a harsh climate, invasive species, and high salt loads. Finding ways to alleviate soil sodicity could improve soil reclamation success. Gypsum, sulfur, activated carbon, and Biochar are being applied to improve soil parameters negatively impacted by sodicity, but the direct impact of these amendments on Uintah Basin soils is still largely unknown. The aim of this study was two-fold. (1) Evaluate the effectiveness of gypsum, sulfuric acid, Biochar, activated carbon, and combinations of these amendments in reducing the impact of soil sodicity of the Desilt and Conglomerate soils by measuring amendment impact on percent dispersion, saturated hydraulic conductivity, crust bulk density, infiltration, and crust formation. (2) Compare a crust bulk density method using ImageJ to the clod wax density method and a modified linear extensibility percent equation to the linear extensibility percent equation to assess whether the novel methods can be used to accurately measure and calculate soil crust bulk density and shrink swell potential while reducing human error and analysis time.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-8807
Date01 December 2019
CreatorsUdy, Sandra
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
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