Abstract
Solutes infiltrating in soils are redistributed in time and space. The breakthrough curve captures the temporal aspect of solute redistribution. When solutes are collected at multiple sampling locations, the recently introduced spatial solute distribution curve can describe spatial redistribution of solutes by ranking the sampling locations in order of decreasing amount of solute. Then, spatio-temporal solute leaching can be described by the leaching surface: a plot of leaching as a function of both time and the cumulative area of the sorted leaching compartments. We used the leaching surface to test an analytical three-region model of fingered flow in soils with water-repellent topsoils and wettable subsoils. We compared a model-generated leaching surface with a leaching surface observed in a lysimeter with 360 sampling compartments under a 1 m 2 undisturbed core of a water-repellent soil. The model failed to predict the strong concentration of solute leaching in a small fraction of the outflow area: it distributed the solute too evenly. The diffusive-dispersive spreading of the solute front in low-flow regions of the natural soil was mimicked by the model through the variation of travel times of the slow flow tubes. The work demonstrated the use of the leaching surface surface can advance our understanding of solute transport processes.
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