Effects of long-term irrigation with treated wastewater on the hydraulic properties of a clayey soil

[1] The increasing demand for freshwater (FW) for domestic use turns treated wastewater (WW) into an attractive source of water for irrigated agriculture. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of 15 yrs of irrigation with WW on hydraulic properties and flow processes in a clayey soil, compared to FW use. It also quantitatively addressed the distribution with depth along the soil profile of that impact on soil hydraulic properties. Standard methods used in soil physics at the laboratory scale, and numerical solutions of the flow equations on the basis of HYDRUS, were applied to define fundamental soil hydraulic properties of disturbed soil samples from 0–20, 20–40, and 40–60 cm layers in the root zone. Results showed that saturated hydraulic conductivity, sorptivity, and infiltration rates are consistently lower in the WW irrigated soil samples at all depths. Water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions were affected by the use of WW, leading to a smaller, simulated-wetted volume below a dripper for the WW-irrigated soil case. These results illustrate the combined and complex effect of WW use on soil-exchangeable sodium percentage, and suggest changes in contact angle and pore size distribution. They also suggest that WW application will affect differently different zones in the soil profile, depending on irrigation management parameters and plant uptake characteristics.