Welcome to the Soil Science Laboratory in the Institute for Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences, ARO - Israel.
We explore soil degredation processes such as salinization and erosion and trying to find ways to mitigate and accommodate these problems in natural and agricultural environements.
A new application of gypsum is suggested, in a suspension, which allows it to be applied via drip irrigation, without precipitating in irrigation pipes and blocking the drippers.
Salt removal by soil manipulation. This work suggests that the manipulation of soil structure by changing the soil physical properties can enforce salt removal from the root zone and create preferable growth conditions.
Salty challenges:
Soil salinization is a problem affecting agriculture, water
resources and ecosystem health in many areas worldwide.
It is estimated that about 15% of the total land area of the
world has been degraded by soil erosion and chemical and
physical degradation, including soil salinization.
Salt dynamics are driven by hydrological processes, which
cycle seasonally but also change over long timescales as a
result of climate variability and change, and changes in land use and land management practices. The physical mechanisms that lead to salinization operate in different ways in different areas, largely as a function of local climatological, hydrological and geological conditions.
Understanding salt dynamics in the diverse environments over the world and to understand the impact of sallinization processes on the environment and to find ways to mitigate and cope with it is an enormous challenge and we try to do our share.
Beside our major interest we have other researches and collaborations going on related to soil conditioning and improving agricultural applications in soil. That’s how we do it:
Soil erosion due to salt accumulation
LATEST RESEARCH:
Field observations have indicated the formation of horizontal, pipe shape cavities, along gully and dry stream channel banks in the semi-arid region of the northern Negev Desert, Israel. Piping is a well-known phenomenon in humid regions due to subsurface water flow and seepage weathering.
Soil contamination in the corrals of the Bedouin herds at the Northern Negev. Tracing and analyzing the influences of sheep herds slops in soil.
PAM - A new providing method of polyacrylamide (PAM) emolsion is tested in lab and field experiments as a soil conditioning, and as a solution for low infiltration rate and extreme runoff issues in semi-arid areas.
Visitors Counter:
This work explores the effect of a surfactant (H2flo) on hydrophobic soils. It is suggested that adding this surfactant to irrigation water may change wetting processes and decrease hydrophobicity.
The angle of slopes have a key role affecting sub-surface water flow, which determines the location of evaporation and salt accumulation.
This work explores the effect of slope inclination angle on salt distribution.