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BOOK REVIEW

Soil Water Repellency

Occurrence, Consequences, and Amelioration

University of Hannover Institute of Soil Science Herrenhaeuser Str. 2 30419 Hannover, Germany

(bachmann{at}ifbk.uni-hannover.de)

Edited by Coen J. Ritsema and Louis W. Dekker, Elsevier Science Ltd., P.O. Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 2003. 352 p. $175.00 hardcover. ISBN 0444512691.

Water repellent (or hydrophobic) soils do not easily absorb water or mix with it, and hydrophobic soil particle surfaces adsorb little or no water. Hydrophobicity is gaining increased attention, as evidenced by the exponentially growing number of publications on water repellent soils during the past decades. It is somewhat surprising that it has taken 35 years from the first major hydrophobicity work (Proceedings of a Symposium on Water Repellent Soils, 6–10 May, 1968, at Riverside, CA, edited by L.F. DeBano and J. Letey) until the publication of the present book. The purpose of the new book is to present an integral view on the phenomena related to water repellent soils and to promote cross-disciplinary discussion. The book is a collection of papers from a conference held in 1998 in Wageningen, the Netherlands. It was partly published in 2000 in Journal of Hydrology (Volume 231/232), and is now combined with four further papers, intended to cover additional aspects. Forty-nine scholars contributed to writing 28 chapters, with each single chapter structured as a regular scientific paper.

The editors have arranged the book in sections, each consisting of two to ten chapters. Section I provides a brief introduction and also an extended historical overview on some of the highlights of soil water repellency research by L.F. DeBano, a pioneer in soil water repellency research. Section II ("Origin of Soil Water Repellency") contains two chapters on the chemical nature of hydrophobic organic compounds (e.g., the importance of plant-derived long chain fatty acids for water repellency). Section III ("Assessment of Soil Water Repellency") contains three short chapters (including a contribution of the reviewer of this book) and sums up recent and simple-to-use methods for the assessment of soil water repellency. Section IV ("Occurrence and Hydrological Implications") seems to be the most informative and comprehensive part. It is particularly useful for researchers and practitioners in environmental disciplines, who are interested, but not specialized, in soil water repellency. The section contains 10 chapters. It deals with different environments, like forest catchments, coastal dune fields, grassland soils, horticultural and agricultural sites, and desert soils from various continents, and it implies that the influence of climatic effects on the production of water repellent organic substances might be limited. Most of these chapters solely describe aspects of the moisture pattern in hydrophobic soils and statistical procedures for their quantification. In one important chapter, the significant, but still only partly understood, impact of soil water on hydrophobicity is discussed. In two chapters, the effect of water repellency on basic ecological processes, such as runoff and erosion, is assessed. Section V ("Effect of Fire on Water Repellency") contains two chapters on the impact of either wildfire or prescribed fire on water repellency. Section VI ("Physics and Modeling of Water Repellent Soils") contains five chapters. In the first chapter the reader is presented with a brief introduction into the physics of hydrophobic soils. It is followed by a chapter on solute transport during infiltration. The next three chapters deal with modeling approaches, in particular with the problem of fingered flow. These chapters are written by researchers experienced in model development and application; the underlying concepts are, therefore, only briefly explained. Consequently, readers with mainly an agricultural or environmental background might be challenged with unfamiliar complex concepts, such as unstable flow theory or state-of-the-art solving numerical algorithms for the two-dimensional Richards equation to generate fingered flow characteristics. Section VII ("Amelioration Techniques and Farming Strategies on Water Repellent Soils") with four chapters returns to applied aspects (e.g., amelioration techniques, either with natural materials or industrial surfactants). Highly valuable also are the final two sections with more than 1000 literature citations.

Overall, this book covers various aspects of water repellency from different points of view. The subjects range from theoretical considerations to an extended description of phenomena. The reader learns chapter by chapter that a variety of environmental problems may be related to water repellency effects. Besides dealing in an exemplary way with water repellency, this book is of additional value, because it considers comprehensively some of the mechanics of moisture propagation in soil. It helps the readers of soils-related disciplines to understand that simple concepts to describe the complex water and solute movement in the unsaturated zone have to be looked at with caution. Because of the structure of the book, the reader is occasionally confronted with rather detailed information. In this respect, I missed a brief introduction prior to each section to link topics, or an overview on the basic repellency mechanisms at the soil particle surface (e.g., "What is the reason for water repellency?"). An index would have been useful. Yet, despite the fact that books made up of research articles, are often difficult to read, this book is a pleasant exception. It is, in general, well-written, well-organized, and edited with much care. Because it covers a wide range of subjects at a high scientific level, it is an asset to the soil water repellency literature.

For this and other reasons, the book is recommended for students and managers of natural resources, such as agronomists, foresters, hydrologists, botanists, geologists, and geographers, as well as civil, sanitary, and chemical engineers. It is also a valuable source book for graduate students concerned with plant production, soil quality, as well as ground water and surface water hydrology.

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