Implications of Using Thermal Desorption to Remediate Contaminated Agricultural Soil: Physical Characteristics and Hydraulic Processes.

Given the recent increase in crude oil production in regions with predominantly agricultural economies, the determination of methods that remediate oil contamination and allow for the land to return to crop production is increasingly relevant. Ex situ thermal desorption (TD) is a technique used to remediate crude oil pollution that allows for reuse of treated soil, but the properties of that treated soil are unknown. The objectives of this research were to characterize TD-treated soil and to describe implications in using TD to remediate agricultural soil.

Field-scale relationships among soil properties and shallow groundwater quality.

It is important to understand the link between land surface/soil properties and shallow groundwater quality. To that end, soil properties and near-water-table groundwater chemistry of a shallow, unconfined aquifer were measured on a 100-m grid on a 64-ha irrigated field in southeastern North Dakota. Soil properties and hydrochemistry were compared via multivariate analysis that included product-moment correlations and factor analysis/principal component analysis.