Applied Soil Hydrology

This state-of-the-art book clearly explains the basic principles of soil hydrology and the current knowledge in this field. It particularly highlights the estimation and application of measurements and evaluation of soil-hydrophysical characteristics using simulation models, with a focus on elucidating the basic hydrophysical characteristics of soil, such as soil water potential and hydraulic conductivity, as well as the methods of measurement. It also addresses topics such as stony soil, water repellent soils, and water movement modeling in those media. 

The book presents soil hydrology in a simple way, while quantitatively expressing the soil water state and movement. It clearly and precisely describes basic terms of soil hydrology with a minimum of mathematics. It also includes the latest research findings in the field as well as the basics of the mathematical modeling of water movement in the soil-plant-atmosphere system (SPAS), using original research results to illustrate these issues.

This book is of interest to all scientists and professionals in soil hydrology, including beginners, as well as those interested and working in hydrology in general and soil hydrology in particular. In addition, it can also be used by specialists and students in related fields like agronomy, forestry, meteorology, hydrology, environmental engineering, environmental protection, and geography.

Viliam Novak is a soil hydrologist at the Institute of Hydrology, Department of Subsurface Water Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (IH SAS), Bratislava, Slovakia. He received his MSc degree from the Slovak Technical University, Faculty of Civil Engineering in Bratislava (1964) and his PhD at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the field of water transport in porous media (1972). He also received a scientific degree DrSc (Doctor of Sciences) in 1992 defending a thesis entitled “Transport of Water and Energy in the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere System”.

Rising from technical assistant to principal scientific officer, Dr Novak was engaged in the study of water and energy transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere system (SPAS), with a focus on evapotranspiration process measurement and calculation methods. His other fields of interest include extraction of soil water by roots as part of the chain soil-plant-atmosphere system and mathematical modeling of water transport in the root zone of the soil to the atmosphere. The mathematical models he developed have been used for the diagnosis and prognosis of the soil water regime of different localities, especially for heavy-soil management in East Slovakia. Another important application of these models was the diagnosis and prognosis of the soil water regime management of the inundation area of the Danube river lowland. The simulation model HYDRUS-ET was developed jointly by US Salinity Laboratory (Riverside, CA, USA) and the Institute of Hydrology SAS (Bratislava, Slovakia). Dr Novak's other field of interest is the role of different canopies in the water regime of mountainous landscape, particularly the transport of water and energy in the SPAS. About 41 percent of Slovak territory is covered by forest and the majority of forest soils are stony soils, making the role of stoniness on soil water regimen of mountainous forest soils his next field of interest.

Author and coauthor of more than 70 journal publications, 4 monographs, and with more than 300 WOS citations, Dr Novak was the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechnics (Bratislava), 1992-2000, and a member of the editorial board of the journal Agric. & Water Management (Elsevier), 1995-2000. He has been a member of the editorial board of International Agrophysics (Lublin, Poland) since 2012.

 

Hana Hlavacikova is a soil hydrologist at the Institute of Hydrology, Department of Subsurface Water Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (IH SAS), Bratislava, Slovakia. She received her MSc degree at the Slovak Technical University, Faculty of Civil Engineering in Bratislava (1995) and her PhD (2015) at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the field of water transport in mountainous, stony soils and its role in outflow generation. She participated in the international course on hydrological data for water resource planning organized by UNESCO (Prague, 1996). From 1998 to 2011, she was employed in the field of hydro-meteorology and infrastructure design and since 2011 she is engaged at the Institute of Hydrology where she works in the field of water movement in mountainous soils with high rock-fragment content and the influence of stoniness on runoff formation. Her research includes the original method of stony hydraulic conductivity calculation and the influence of shape and distribution of rock fragments in stony soils on saturated hydraulic conductivity, as well as mathematical modeling of water flow in stony soils.