Most recent studies on soil water repellency (WR) were limited to the humous topsoil or to shallow subsoil layers slightly below the main root zone to approximately 0.5 m depth. Hence, the main objective of the present study was to investigate the wettability pattern of a forest soil including the deeper subsoil. The selected site was a 100 years old beech forest on a well-drained sandy Cambisol in northern Germany which showed moderate to partly extended acidification. Results obtained from three sampling transects (3 m length, 2 m depth; sampling grid 8 × 8 samples per transect; minimum distance of sampling locations to nearest tree about 0.5 m) show that contact angles (CA) were always in the subcritical WR range (0° < CA < 90°). Significant impact of the tree distance on WR was not observed for any of the transects. A prominent feature of two transects was the minimum WR level (CA < 10°) for samples with soil organic carbon (SOC) contents around 0.25-0.4%. For the topsoils it was observed that CA increased with SOC content from that minimum to a maximum CA of 60-75° for transects 1 and 2 with mean pH values < 3.5. For transect 3 with slightly higher average pH close to 4.0, average CA of samples were always < 10° and showed no trend to increase with increasing SOC content or other soil parameters like N content or C/N ratio. Subsoil samples, however, behave differently with respect to SOC: for these samples, generally low in SOC, the CA increase with decreasing SOC occurred at all transects for approximately 50% of the samples but did not show any clear tendencies with respect to further parameters like texture, pH or N content. We conclude that the SOC content is the most prominent parameter determining wettability, either positively correlated with WR for topsoils or negatively correlated for subsoil samples very low in SOC. We finally conclude for moderately acid beech forest stands that emerging WR starts in the A horizon after reaching a pH lower than 3.5, whereas subsoil WR might appear already at higher pH values. Even SOC contents of ∼0.01-0.02% turned out to be very effective in increasing the CA up to 70°, which points out clearly the importance of small amounts of soil organic matter in affecting subsoil wettability. With respect to site hydrology we conclude that ongoing acidification as well as predicted higher frequencies of extended droughts due to climate change will promote the occurrence of WR with corresponding implications for site and catchment hydrology.
Surface sediment samples from three water reservoirs of Slovakia were analyzed for selected organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). Concentrations of total dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (ΣDDTs) in the sediments from Velke Kozmalovce, Ruzin, and Zemplinska Sirava ranged from 12 to 24 ng g-1, 5 to 28 ng g-1, and 1 to 20 ng g-1, respectively, with the exception of one sediment sample from Zemplinska Sirava, having anomalously high concentration of ΣDDTs (526 ng g-1). Concentrations of hexachlorobenzene (HCB) in the sediments from these water reservoirs were generally lower and ranged from 0.3 to 9 ng g-1. Other organochlorine pesticides such as mirex, lindane and heptachlor were not detected in the surface sediments. Ratios of DDT/(DDE + DDD) were lower than 1.0 in majority of the sediment samples indicating that the degradation of the parent DDT occurred significantly and DDT in the sediments from the studied water reservoirs was derived mainly from the weathered agricultural soils. Moreover, ratios of DDD/DDE indicated that the parent DDT was degraded under aerobic conditions before depositing into the sediments of these water reservoirs. and V štúdii boli analyzované vzorky sedimentov z troch vodných nádrží Slovenska na vybrané organochlórované pesticídy (OCPs). Koncentrácie sumy DDT a jeho metabolitov DDE a DDD (ΣDDTs) v sedimentoch z vodných nádrží Veľké Kozmálovce, Ružín a Zemplínska Šírava sa nachádzali v intervale od 12 do 24 ng g-1, od 5 do 28 ng g-1 a od 1 do 20 ng g-1, s výnimkou jednej vzorky sedimentu zo Zemplínskej Šíravy, ktorá vykazovala anomálne vysokú koncentráciu ΣDDTs (526 ng g-1). Koncentrácie hexachlórbenzénu (HCB) v sedimentoch z týchto vodných nádrží boli všeobecne nižšie a pohybovali sa v intervale od 0,3 do 9 ng g-1. Iné v sedimentoch sledované organochlórované pesticídy ako mirex, lindán a heptachlór neboli zistené. Vo väčšine vzoriek sedimentov boli hodnoty pomeru DDT/(DDE + DDD) nižšie ako 1, z čoho sa dá usúdiť, že väčšia časť pôvodne prítomného DDT sa rozložila na jeho hlavné metabolity a že DDT v sedimentoch vodných nádrží pochádza najmä z erodovaných poľnohospodárskych pôd. Hodnoty pomeru DDD/DDE ukázali, že predtým ako bol DDT deponovaný do sedimentov vodných nádrží, rozkladal sa najmä za aeróbnych podmienok.