GeodermaPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117439
Abdelkrim Bouasria
{"title":"Was the balanced stratified coverage sampling not well spatially distributed, or was it inadequately implemented?","authors":"Abdelkrim Bouasria","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117439","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117439","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"460 ","pages":"Article 117439"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144664774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117469
Mengmeng Feng , Yongxin Lin , Jia Liu , Xiangyin Ni , Yuheng Cheng , Hang-Wei Hu , Juntao Wang , Luyuan Sun , Zi-Yang He , Ji-Zheng He
{"title":"Chinese milk vetch incorporation inhibits nitrification by suppressing comammox Nitrospira in subtropical paddy soils","authors":"Mengmeng Feng , Yongxin Lin , Jia Liu , Xiangyin Ni , Yuheng Cheng , Hang-Wei Hu , Juntao Wang , Luyuan Sun , Zi-Yang He , Ji-Zheng He","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117469","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117469","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Chinese milk vetch (<em>Astragalus sinicus</em> L.) incorporation (CVI), straw return (SR), and nitrogen reduction (NR) are common agricultural practices, but their impacts on soil nitrogen (N) cycling processes and associated microbial communities remain poorly understood. In this study, CVI, SR, and NR effects on soil net N mineralization and potential nitrification rates, the abundance/activity of ammonia oxidizers, and comammox <em>Nitrospira</em> (COMX) community structure were examined. While CVI significantly increased the net N mineralization rate and acid-hydrolysable N fraction, SR and NR did not affect these values. At the same time, CVI decreased the potential nitrification rate and reduced COMX clade A <em>amoA</em> gene and transcript copy number, whereas SR and NR increased <em>amoA</em> gene copy number. DNA stable isotope probing (DNA-SIP) revealed that COMX clade A played a critical role in nitrification. COMX community richness was reduced by CVI and increased by SR. COMX community structure was also shaped by CVI, with soil NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>-N and pH acting as two key moderators of these effects. Additionally, CVI increased the influence of deterministic processes on COMX community assembly. Together, these findings indicate that CVI enhances N mineralization while simultaneously reducing nitrification, potentially improving N retention. These results enhance our mechanistic understanding of N cycling, allowing for the optimization of fertilization strategies to balance agronomic productivity with environmental sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"461 ","pages":"Article 117469"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144757638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relationships between base saturation, effective base saturation and soil pH as the references for the development and verification of criteria for international soil classification","authors":"Cezary Kabala , Stephan Mantel , Magdalena Bednik-Dudek , Melania Matuszak","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117465","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117465","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Base saturation (BS) and effective base saturation (BSe) are widely used soil characteristics, commonly involved in the criteria of soil classification, including the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB) system. However, their parallel use can result in an internal inconsistency in assessing the base status in particular soil types. Furthermore, numerous methods of estimating BS and BSe lead to an incomparability of analytical results and improper soil classification; therefore, replacement of Bs and BSe with simple pH measurement is postulated. The aim of the present study was (i) to analyse the relationship between BS and BSe and the consequences of replacing BS with BSe in selected classification criteria of the WRB system, and (ii) to analyse the relationships between pH and BS and BSe, and the possibility of replacing these measures with pH for at least provisional soil classification. An analysis was carried out using a large database (more than 290,000 soil horizons) compiled from the datasets from the USA, Canada, Portugal, Poland, ISRIC, and other published papers, which comprises soil representing various climate zones, parent materials, and soil types. In mineral soils, 50% BS corresponds to 75–77% (in Andosols: 85%) BSe, therefore, BS and BSe cannot be equivalently replaced in the requirements for Dystric and Eutric qualifiers. Setting the criteria at 50% BSe in the latter editions of WRB results in a possible overestimation of the abundance of soils with Eutric qualifier compared to estimations based on the criteria of the FAO Legend to World Soil Map and early editions of WRB. The study confirmed the statistically significant relationship between BS and pH and estimated the pH<sub>w</sub> values corresponding to 50% BS and 50% BSe at 5.2 and 4.7, respectively, in mineral soils. The large variation of these relationships justifies separate thresholds for organic soils and Andosols (at pH<sub>w</sub> 4.9 and 6.1, respectively) and the differentiation of pH thresholds for the remaining mineral soil in relation to soil organic carbon and clay content. The pH<sub>KCl</sub> values corresponding to 50% BS and 50% BSe were estimated with lower determination coefficients than for pH<sub>w</sub>. Thus, setting the thresholds on pH<sub>KCl</sub> values seems less reliable and more difficult as an in-field procedure compared to pH<sub>w</sub>.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"461 ","pages":"Article 117465"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144750115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117459
Zixuan Zhou , Yunqiang Wang , Chencheng Zhang , Hui Sun
{"title":"Expansion and intensification of deep soil drying on the Loess Plateau of China over the last three decades","authors":"Zixuan Zhou , Yunqiang Wang , Chencheng Zhang , Hui Sun","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117459","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117459","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil water is experiencing continuously changing under current land use change. The launch of the great “Grain for Green” (GFG) project expanded the revegetation area on the Loess Plateau of China, with the consumption of soil water resources, even in the deep soil. However, spatial and temporal changes of deep soil drying are lacking at a large scale due to observational constraints, and their development caused by revegetation has not been addressed. Here, we utilized dried soil layer (DSL) indices to evaluate the degree of deep soil drying based on a published soil water dataset for the 1–10 m soil profiles. We divided the study period into Period-1 (1985–1999) and Period-2 (2000–2015) with the start of the GFG project (1999) as the turning point, and obtained the annual spatio-temporal distribution of DSLs by using the spatial random forest method. DSL areas mainly extended from the arid and semi-arid regions in Period-1 to the semi-humid region in Period-2. The mean soil water content within the DSL (DSL-SWC) significantly decreased from 8.6% in Period-1 to 7.4% in Period-2. Enlarged and intensified DSLs across the Loess Plateau from Period-1 to Period-2 indicated that the degree of deep soil drying increased after the GFG project at the regional scale due to revegetation. To better support the greenness of revegetation, we proposed management practices incorporating large-scale revegetation allocation and small-scale management reinforcement for sustainable ecosystem development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"461 ","pages":"Article 117459"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117464
Tianyu Ding , Zichun Guo , Keke Hua , Zizhou Yu , Jiaqi Li , Yueming Chen , Zhibin Guo , Daozhong Wang , Jianli Liu , Xinhua Peng
{"title":"Effects of legume-cover crop rotations on soil pore characteristics and particulate organic matter distributions in Vertisol based on X-ray computed tomography","authors":"Tianyu Ding , Zichun Guo , Keke Hua , Zizhou Yu , Jiaqi Li , Yueming Chen , Zhibin Guo , Daozhong Wang , Jianli Liu , Xinhua Peng","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117464","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117464","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Cover crops have been used as an effective soil management practice to improve soil pore structure and promote particulate organic matter (POM) accumulation. However, the effects of different cover crop rotations on soil pore characteristics and the spatial distributions for POM remain poorly understood. This study examined the influence of five cropping systems (spring maize monoculture (M), wheat-maize rotation (WM), wheat-soybean rotation (WS), wheat-<em>Cassia occidentalis</em> rotation (WCo), and wheat-<em>Cassia tora</em> Linn<em>.</em> rotation (WCt)) on soil POM fractions, pore structure, and soil physical properties, and nutrient availability in a Vertisol. The results showed that, compared to M treatment, all four rotation systems significantly increased image-based porosity, 120–1000 μm porosity, pore surface area density, and connection probability (<em>P</em> < 0.05). The WCo and WCt treatments led to an increase in connected porosity by 207 % and 130 % (<em>P</em> < 0.05). They also significantly increased fresh POM by 90.4 % and 55.5 %, and total POM by 75.4 % and 52.4 %, respectively (<em>P</em> < 0.05). These treatments also significantly increased air permeability (<em>K<sub>a</sub></em>), relative gas diffusivity (<em>D<sub>s</sub>/D<sub>0</sub></em>), and saturated hydraulic conductivity (<em>K<sub>s</sub></em>) (<em>P</em> < 0.05). Strong correlations were observed between fresh POM and pore structural parameters (image-based porosity, connected porosity, 500–1000 μm porosity, hydraulic radius), as well as soil physical properties (<em>K<sub>s</sub></em>, <em>K<sub>a</sub></em>, <em>D<sub>s</sub>/D<sub>0</sub></em>). The positive feedback between pore structure and POM accumulation facilitated soil structural improvement under leguminous cover crop-based rotations (WCo, WCt). These findings suggest that integrating <em>Cassia occidentalis</em> and <em>Cassia tora</em> Linn<em>.</em> into rotation systems can effectively enhance soil structure and promote organic matter sequestration in Vertisols.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"461 ","pages":"Article 117464"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117450
Fabian Kirsten , Daniel Moraetis , Georgios E. Christidis , Rosa Poch , Steven Forman , Kosmas Pavlopoulos
{"title":"Paleosols as indicators for late Pleistocene landscape dynamics in Crete (Greece)","authors":"Fabian Kirsten , Daniel Moraetis , Georgios E. Christidis , Rosa Poch , Steven Forman , Kosmas Pavlopoulos","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117450","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117450","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Paleosols in different climatic zones and geomorphological settings serve as important paleoenvironmental archives. Crete (Greece) with its central location in the eastern Mediterranean area constitutes an important (paleo)climatic transition zone between northern Africa and the Eurasia. While paleosols have been commonly described and used as chronostratigraphic markers within a large number of geological and archaeological studies in Crete, they have not been subject of a comparative study so far. In the present study, we analyse seven pedocomplexes in central and western Crete within different climatic, geological and geomorphological settings. Our analysis is based on geochemistry, grain size distribution, bulk and clay mineralogy, micromorphology and absolute datings (luminescence, radiocarbon). In all cases, the paleosol horizons, mainly Bt- und Bk-horizons, display strong indications for pedogenesis, such as increased clay contents or carbon accumulation, similar reddish-brown colours and abundant characteristic clay minerals, especially vermiculite, smectite and kaolinite, compared to the over- and underlying sediments. However, clay composition also reveals desequilibrium conditions indicating an allochthonous origin of at least part of the material. Furthermore, micromorphological results do not clearly confirm in-situ pedogenesis. Therefore, open questions related to the redeposition of Terra Rossa as pedosediments as well as the importance of dust inputs from long-range sources remain. Chronostratigraphically, the timing of the deposition of soil parent materials as well as the formation of petrocalcic horizons indicate that soil formation was related to climatic transition phases during the late Pleistocene in most studied cases. However, due to the limited number of profiles, datings and comparable geo-archives in Crete, these results need to be substantiated in future studies incorporating further paleosols in Crete and the surroundings areas in the Eastern Mediterranean.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"461 ","pages":"Article 117450"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739586","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-30DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117462
Nicolas Francos, Amin Sharififar, Trevan Flynn, Quentin Styc, Sandra J. Evangelista, Jose Padarian, Wartini Ng, Damien J. Field, Budiman Minasny, Alex B. McBratney
{"title":"The global pedogenon map: Combining and spatialising the factors of soil formation","authors":"Nicolas Francos, Amin Sharififar, Trevan Flynn, Quentin Styc, Sandra J. Evangelista, Jose Padarian, Wartini Ng, Damien J. Field, Budiman Minasny, Alex B. McBratney","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117462","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117462","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study presents the development of a global pedogenon map, which classifies soil units based on similarities in their formation processes while excluding anthropogenic effects, at a high spatial resolution of 90 m. Designed for use by scientists, land managers, and policymakers, this map classifies distinct soil units —called pedogenons—based on key soil-forming factors, including parent material, climate, soil organisms, relief, and inherent soil properties. This study employs a combination of principal component analysis (PCA), non-metric-multidimensional-scaling (NMDS), and an unsupervised classification technique (K-means clustering) to capture the full range of soil formation processes across diverse landscapes of the world yielding an unbiased, globally applicable classification. The global pedogenon map enables soil capacity and condition monitoring on a global scale. This foundation is crucial for future identification of “least disturbed soils” to serve as a reference for any soil around the globe. By integrating this dataset with broader environmental data, the global pedogenon map supports global efforts to enhance soil security and monitor environmental changes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"460 ","pages":"Article 117462"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144724983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-29DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117463
Jingjing Liu , Yu Tian , Chiara Pasut , Mark Farrell , Shenggao Lu
{"title":"Investigating the influence of soil organic carbon on pore structure within aggregates","authors":"Jingjing Liu , Yu Tian , Chiara Pasut , Mark Farrell , Shenggao Lu","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117463","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117463","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil pore structural properties, such as porosity, size distribution and geometry, are crucial for various soil processes and are significantly influenced by soil organic carbon (SOC). SOC plays a vital role in determining soil functionality and ecosystem services and is the primary driver of pore geometry within soil aggregates, yet traditional in-situ analysis methods have fallen short in accurately describing its intricate distribution. This study employed a two-stage approach to analyze soil structure at the pore scale: a hydrogen peroxide fogging system was used to selectively remove organic carbon from soil aggregates, followed by synchrotron radiation micro-computed tomography (SR-μCT) for in-depth three-dimensional imaging. The results revealed that the hydrogen peroxide treatment variably reduced organic carbon in soil aggregates, with Cambisol samples showing a higher removal efficiency (38.58–63.31%) compared to Ultisol samples (27.33–45.74%). Mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) was more stable than particle organic carbon (POC). SOC depletion led to consistent changes in pore volume across soil types, but the changes in pore shape distribution varied between Cambisols and Ultisols. In Cambisols, SOC removal was associated with more pronounced shifts in pore morphology, whereas Ultisols showed more heterogeneous responses, likely due to differing mineralogical properties. These findings suggest that SOC contributes differently to pore structure depending on soil type. This study aimed to move beyond the traditional “black box” view of soil by visualizing the complex interactions between soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil structure with a new method. This approach could provide valuable insights into the mechanisms behind soil aggregate formation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"460 ","pages":"Article 117463"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-28DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117451
Cuixia Jiang , Xiaoping Xin , Kai Xue , Zhigang Zhao , Weixing Liu , Haonan Guo , Feng Liu , Hui Li , Zihao Li , Yufan Si , Ruirui Yan
{"title":"Grazing-induced abiotic and resource changes drive distinct responses of soil bacterial and fungal community in temperate meadow steppe: Implications for carbon dynamics","authors":"Cuixia Jiang , Xiaoping Xin , Kai Xue , Zhigang Zhao , Weixing Liu , Haonan Guo , Feng Liu , Hui Li , Zihao Li , Yufan Si , Ruirui Yan","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117451","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117451","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Soil microbial communities play a crucial role in maintaining grassland ecosystem functions and are strongly influenced by livestock grazing. However, the long-term responses and driving mechanisms of soil microbial communities to grazing intensity gradients, remain largely unexplored. In this study, we investigated the mechanism of different grazing intensities (i.e., ungrazed, light, moderate and heavy grazing) affect the diversity and composition of soil bacteria and fungi in the Hulunbuir <em>Leymus chinensis</em> meadow steppe. Using a Bipartite network to represent indicative species shifts, bacterial community presented a clear succession along the grazing intensity gradient, likely linked to soil abiotic conditions (e.g. soil temperature, silt). In contrast, fungal community exhibited a more discrete shift along the grazing intensity gradient, challenging the traditional view that fungal community is more stable under disturbance. The shifts in fungal community were closely related to the vegetation composition and aboveground biomass, reflecting a typical bottom-up resource-related regulation, which were more dynamic than changes caused by abiotic conditions along the grazing intensity gradient. Interestingly, indicator analysis showed that higher grazing intensity shifted bacterial and fungal composition towards more oligotrophic (e.g. Dothideomycetes, Sordariomycetes, Leotiomycetes, and Chloroflexi, Thermoleophilia) and less copiotrophic (e.g. Saprotrophs, Bacteroides and subgroup_6). This shift reflects the depleted substrate and is consistent with the observed inhibition of ecosystem respiration, implying lower organic matter decomposition. The distinct patterns of bacteria and fungi responses provides novel insights into the mechanisms, through which grazing alters soil bacterial and fungal communities with potential long-term consequences, including future growth-limiting resource and soil environment conditions to withstand future disturbances, which affect soil bacterial and fungal communities differently and consequently modulate soil organic carbon turnover. Moreover, the different substrate affinity of copiotrophic and oligotrophic groups altered available and recalcitrant C decomposition, which may change soil carbon cycling and stocks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"460 ","pages":"Article 117451"},"PeriodicalIF":6.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144721524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
GeodermaPub Date : 2025-07-27DOI: 10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117457
Hannah Waterhouse, Helen E. Dahlke, William R. Horwath
{"title":"Denitrification in the deep vadose zone: implications for nitrate leaching under agricultural managed aquifer recharge","authors":"Hannah Waterhouse, Helen E. Dahlke, William R. Horwath","doi":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117457","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117457","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Managed aquifer recharge on agricultural lands (AgMAR) is an inexpensive and extensive form of recharge compared to dedicated recharge basins and injections wells. However, uncertain nitrogen cycling outcomes concerning nitrate (NO<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup>) transport and fate in the unsaturated zone remain. A combination of laboratory and field experiments were conducted to assess biogeochemical controls on denitrification in surface soils and subsurface sediments during AgMAR. Acetylene block assays were conducted in anaerobic conditions to determine dentification potential rates in the root zone and subsurface sediments collected from an almond orchard down to nine meters in the Central Valley of California. Samples were either amended with carbon (C) and NO<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup> additions (potential assays) or no substrates were added (control) and nitrous oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O) was measured over three days. Denitrification potential assays resulted in four times more N<sub>2</sub>O production near the surface, and 49x more N<sub>2</sub>O production in the subsurface compared to the control. However, even without additions of C, sediments were able to denitrify ∼ 40 % of the NO<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup> present in the subsurface during the incubation. Additionally, δ<sup>15</sup>N of NO<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup> was measured in the field before and after AgMAR, showing an average absolute increase of 4.0 ‰ in δ<sup>15</sup>N across 4 m depth suggesting denitrification following AgMAR. Statistical analysis suggests N<sub>2</sub>O production in assays depends on environmental controls or geochemistry of the soils/sediments when C concentrations are low, with iron significantly influencing denitrification in the control, but not in denitrification potential assays. These results from both laboratory incubations and the field demonstrate initial indications that the vadose zone has the potential to attenuate NO<sub>3</sub><sup>–</sup> via denitrification, however, our results do not allow exact quantification of denitrified N mass under AgMAR, and more work is needed to determine denitrification rates in-situ. Future studies should focus on quantifying denitrification rates in-situ during and immediately following AgMAR events.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12511,"journal":{"name":"Geoderma","volume":"460 ","pages":"Article 117457"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144713283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}