Transport of vinasse ions in structured soils

Abstract

The evaluation of ion transport of vinasse due to fertigation can be performed by models that consider the unimodal pore size distribution. However, lateritic or structured soils can present pore size distributions with different geometric, physical and hydraulic properties. In this context, the present work presents the numerical modeling of the transport of a generic vinasse ion, percolating from the surface or source of contamination into groundwater, considering the uni and bimodal pore-size distribution. The results showed that, for the conceptual model, vinasse ions can reach groundwater three times faster when considering bimodal models and that the use of unimodal models in lateritic soils can lead to underestimation or overestimation of final concentrations, especially in soils where the discontinuity of the pore size distribution occurs at lower suction values.