Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 8, 10007–10052, 2011 Hydrology and www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/8/10007/2011/ Earth System doi:10.5194/hessd-8-10007-2011 Sciences © Author(s) 2011. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in HESS if available. Meta-analysis of the effects of soil properties, site factors and experimental conditions on preferential solute transport J. K. Koestel, J. Moeys, and N. J. Jarvis Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P.O. Box 7014, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden Received: 27 October 2011 – Accepted: 28 October 2011 – Published: 15 November 2011 Correspondence to: J. K. Koestel (
[email protected]) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 10007 Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Discussion Paper | Abstract Preferential flow is a widespread phenomenon that is known to strongly affect solute transport in soil, but our understanding and knowledge is still poor of the site factors and soil properties that promote it. To investigate these relationships, we assembled a 5 database from the peer-reviewed literature containing information on 793 breakthrough curve experiments under steady-state flow conditions. Most of the collected experi- ments (642 of the 793 datasets) had been conducted on undisturbed soil columns, although some experiments on repacked soil, clean sands, and glass beads were also included. In addition to the apparent dispersivity, we focused attention on three poten- 10 tial indicators of preferential solute transport, namely the 5 %-arrival time, the holdback factor, and the ratio of piston-flow and average transport velocities.