N.L.M.B. Van SchaikWageningen University & Research | WUR · Department of Soil Physics and Land Management
N.L.M.B. Van Schaik
Dr.
About
54
Publications
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Introduction
I am an ecohydrologist working at the department of Soil Pysics and Land Management at Wageningen University. I work mainly on the spatiotemporal variability in soil hydrological processes with a focus on the interactions between soil fauna/ vegetation and hydrology.
Additional affiliations
June 2009 - March 2013
June 2003 - March 2008
Publications
Publications (54)
Due to their seemingly ubiquitous nature and links to environmental and human health problems, microplastics are quickly becoming a major concern worldwide. Artificial environments, such as those found in urban environments, represent some of the main sources of microplastic. However, very few studies have focused on the occurrence of microplastics...
![MP transport by soil invertebrates
taken from [58] modified](publication/358566820/figure/fig2/AS:1122854200459271@1644720711377/MP-transport-by-soil-invertebrates-taken-from-58-modified_Q320.jpg)
This paper explores different interactions and processes involved in the transport of microplastics from agricultural systems to surrounding environments. We conducted an exhaustive review of the most recent scientific papers on microplastic transport in terrestrial systems, with an emphasis on agricultural systems. In the following sections, sever...
The link between landscape properties and hydrological functioning is the very foundation of hydrological sciences. The fundamental perception that landscape organisation and its hydrological and biogeochemical processes co-develop is often discussed. However, different landscape characteristics and hydrological processes interact in complex ways....
Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...
Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provid...
Purpose
Topsoil and peat are often taken from intact rural ecosystems to supply the urban demand for fertile soils and soil-like substrates. One way of reducing this exploitation is to recycle suitable urban wastes to produce Technosols and technogenic soil-like substrates. In this study, we investigate the role earthworms can play in impacting the...
The ubiquitous accumulation of microplastic (MP) particles across all global ecosystems accompanies their uptake into soil food webs. In this review, we analyzed studies on passive translocation, active ingestion, bioaccumulation and adverse effects within the phylogenetic tree of multicellular soil faunal life. The representativity of these studie...
Abstract. The ubiquitous accumulation of microplastic (MP) particles across all global ecosystems comes along with the uptake into soil food webs. In this review, we analyzed studies on passive translocation, active ingestion, bioaccumulation and adverse effects within the phylogenetic tree of multicellular soil faunal life. The representativity of...
Salinization is a well‐known problem in agricultural areas worldwide. In the last 20–30 yr, rising salinity in the upper, unconfined aquifer has been observed in the Freepsumer Meer, a grassland near the German North Sea coast. For investigating long‐term development of salinity and water balance during 1961–2099, the one‐dimensional Soil–Water–Atm...
Soil organisms, including earthworms, are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about their diversity, their distribution, and the threats affecting them. We compiled a global dataset of sampled earthworm communities from 6928 sites in 57 countries as a basis for predicting patterns in earthworm diversity, abundance, a...
This PDF file includes:
Materials and Methods
Supplementary Text
Figs. S1 to S6
Tables S1 to S4
References
Water and solute flux in unsaturated soils is highly variable in space and time. It is hard to measure water flow in the unsaturated zone.Fiberglass wicks are frequently used to measure the flow of water in soils.Fiberglass wicks act as a hanging water column, making it possible to draw water from unsaturated soil without external application of su...
Salinization is a well-known problem in agricultural areas worldwide. For the last 20–30 years, rising salinity in the upper, unconfined aquifer has been observed in the Freepsumer Meer, a deep grassland area near the German North Sea coast. In order to investigate long-term development of soil salinity and water balance, the one-dimensional SWAP m...
Earthworms create biopores and thereby increase the susceptibility of soils to preferential flow which, on the one hand, reduces surface runoff and soil erosion, but, on the other hand, enhances vertical water and solute transport. Spatial and temporal variability in earthworm abundances might lead to spatial and temporal variability in biopore den...
In the tropics, livestock grazing usually occurs simultaneously with charcoal production, yet empirical understanding of the combined activities remains poor, especially as regards to their effects on hydrological functions. Given predicted growth in both charcoal and beef production in Sub-Sahara Africa, South East Asia, and Central and South Amer...
Macropores greatly affect water and solute transport in soils. Most macropores are of biogenic origin; however, the resulting seasonal dynamics are often neglected. Our study aimed to examine temporal changes in biopore networks and the resulting infiltration patterns. We performed infiltration experiments with Brilliant Blue on pastureland in the...
This study explores the suitability of a single hillslope as a parsimonious
representation of a catchment in a physically based model. We test this
hypothesis by picturing two distinctly different catchments in perceptual
models and translating these pictures into parametric setups of 2-D
physically based hillslope models. The model parametrization...
Earthworms play a key role in regulating soil ecosystem functions and services. The small scale variability in earthworm abundance is often found to be very high, which is a problem for representative sampling of earthworm abundance at larger scales. In agricultural fields, soil tillage may influence both the average earthworm abundance as well as...
Despite the numerous hydrological models existing in hydrology we are limited to a few forms of conceptualization when abstracting hydrological systems into different model frameworks. Speaking in black and white terms, in most cases hydrological systems are either represented spatially lumped with conceptual models or spatially explicit with physi...
Earthworms affect various soil ecosystem processes in their role as ecosystem engineers. The spatial distribution of earthworms determines the spatial distribution of their functional effects. In particular, earthworm-induced macropore networks may act as preferential flow pathways. In this research we aimed to determine earthworm distributions at...
Subsurface water flows play a key role in the distribution of water and solutes and thereby in the water availability for plants. However, the characterization of different flow processes (i.e. matrix and preferential flow), the frequency and factors that cause them, are relatively rare. This characterization enables a better understanding of spati...
Earthworms as ecosystem engineers alter soil structure and related biogeochemical and soil physical processes through their burrowing behavior. The spatiotemporal distribution of earthworms is supposed to be linked with the spatiotemporal distribution of their functional effects, from bioturbation and seed dispersal to soil hydrological effects, fo...
Flow phenomena in the unsaturated zone are highly variable in time and space. Thus, it is challenging to measure and monitor such processes under field conditions. Here, we present a new setup and interpretation approach for combining a dye tracer experiment with a 4D ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey. Therefore, we designed a rainfall experime...
Subsurface stormflow is thought to occur mainly in humid environments with steep terrains. However, in semi-arid areas, preferential flow through macropores can also result in a significant contribution of subsurface stormflow to catchment runoff for varying catchment conditions. Most hydrological models neglect this important subsurface preferenti...
According to Dooge (1986) intermediate-scale catchments are systems of organized complexity, being too organized and yet too small to be characterized on a statisti-cal/conceptual basis, but too large and too heterogeneous to be characterized in a deterministic manner. A key require-ment for building structurally adequate models precisely for this...
Ecohydrology analyses the interactions of biotic and abiotic aspects of our ecosystems and landscapes and is a particularly diverse discipline regarding thematic and methodical research foci. This article gives an overview of current German ecohydrological research approaches within plant-animal-soil-systems, meso-scale catchments and their river n...
Ökohydrologie als verbindende Disziplin zwischen der Biotik und Abiotik von Landschaftssystemen ist in ihrer thematischen Ausrichtung und Methodik äußerst vielfältig. In diesem Artikel werden exemplarisch ökohydrologische Forschungsschwerpunkte von deutschen Forschergruppen für Pflanzen-Tiere-Boden-Systeme, mesoskalige Einzugsgebiete und ihrer Flus...
Preferential flow due to fingering, funnelling or macropore flow results in small scale spatial variability in infiltration. On the plot scale (∼ 1 m × 1 m), a common method to characterize such infiftration patterns are sprinkling experiments using dye tracers. Typically, the resulting patterns are analyzed after excavation using digital photograp...
Tile drains strongly influence the water cycle in agricultural catchment in terms of water quantity and quality. The connectivity of preferential flow to tile drains can create shortcuts for rapid transport of solutes into surface waters. The leaching of pesticides can be linked to a set of main factors including, rainfall characteristics, soil moi...
Due to its high spatial and temporal variability, preferential flow is difficult to measure and quantify. Earthworms create macropores that provide common pathways for preferential flow. Therefore in this article, we link earthworm abundance to macropore numbers and hydrological effectiveness, with the future aim to use species distribution models...
Ecohydrology analyses the interactions of biotic and abiotic aspects of our ecosystems and landscapes. It is a highly diverse discipline in terms of its thematic and methodical research foci. This article gives an overview of current German ecohydrological research approaches within plant-animal-soil-systems, meso-scale catchments and their river n...
European eel stocks are in steep decline, and the species’ complex catadromous life cycle, including marine and freshwater inhabitation, complicates the identification of responsible causes. Besides natural impacts like climate change and parasite infestation, several anthropogenic factors are proposed as possible explanations. Along with overfishin...
Earthworms affect various soil physical, chemical and biological states and processes in soils. Through their burrowing behavior they create aggregates and macropore systems. In our research projects, we aim at the investigation of these soil structure changes in various experimental studies. In field experiments in the Attert catchment (Luxemburg)...
In the meso-scale Attert Catchment in Luxemburg a total of 10 experiments with a high intensity rainfall of 1 hour duration with Brilliant Blue tracer were carried out. Subsequently the soil under the experiments was excavated and pictures of the vertical infiltration patterns were made. The experiments were performed on locations varying in geolog...
Soil macroporosity of biogene origin is a common cause for preferential flow in the topsoil. The occurrence of macropores allows for catchments to switch the internal processes from slow matrix flow to rapid preferential flow depending on catchment state and driving forces. Sidle et al. (2001) desribed macroporous networks as self-organising system...
The filtering function of soil is an important ecosystem service for groundwater and surface water protection. The efficiency of soils as a filter depends on the behaviour of pollutants in the soil and the hydrological transport processes. This paper aims to identify knowledge gaps in processes influencing pollutant behaviour in soils and their pot...
Through their burrowing behavior earthworms affect the soil structure and thereby soil ecosystem functions such as aeration and water and solute transport processes. Many studies, often in confined soil volumes with limited species compositions, have led to a basic understanding of the earthworms effects on soil structure in the past years. Neverth...
Slow matrix flow and rapid by-pass, i.e. preferential flow, result in a large variability of flow in the topsoil. The spatiotemporal infiltration variability in the topsoil strongly determines the distribution of precipitation water to surface runoff, soil moisture storage and rapid percolation to groundwater. Measurement of quantitative indicators...
Soils provide central ecosystem functions in recycling nutrients, detoxifying harmful chemicals as well as regulating microclimate and local hydrological processes. The internal regulation of these functions and therefore the development of healthy and fertile soils mainly depend on the functional diversity of plants and animals. Soil organisms dri...
Preferential flow is known to influence infiltration, soil moisture content distribution, groundwater response, and runoff generation. Various model concepts are used to simulate preferential flow. Preferential flow parameters are often determined by indirect optimization using outflow or discharge measurements, thereby providing limited insight in...
Desertification and landscape degradation is a worldwide problem, which is expected to grow in time due to unsustainable land use and climate change. In view of these problems, knowledge of the interaction between vegetation, soil moisture and surface runoff, with subsequent erosion risk is essential. This requires mapping of the spatial and tempor...
Preferential flow may strongly affect hydrology at different scales. Measurement of preferential flow however remains very difficult. Tracer-infiltration profiles are often used to measure the degree of preferential flow at plot scale. These experiments are time-consuming, costly and destructive. As a result existing dye-tracer studies are often ba...
Flow of water through the vadose zone determines the partitioning of water among various components of the hydrologic cycle: infiltration, runoff, soil moisture storage, evapotranspiration and groundwater recharge. Preferential flow is the rapid flow of water and solutes along certain pathways bypassing a large part of the porous media. Preferentia...
Preferential flow is known to influence infiltration, soil moisture
content distribution, groundwater response and runoff production.
Several hydrological models are capable of simulating preferential flow,
using different concepts. Model parameterization of preferential flow is
however often limited to indirect optimization using outflow or
discha...
Preferential flow is known to influence hillslope hydrology in many areas around the world. Most research on preferential flow has been performed in temperate regions. Preferential infiltration has also been found in semi-arid regions, but its impact on the hydrology of these regions is poorly known. The aim of this study is to describe and quantif...
Earthworms can serve as indicator spe-cies for various important soil processes. Therefore we can link distribution patterns of earthworms to the incidence of induced soil processes. Species distribution mod-els can help us to predict earthworm dis-tributions on different scales. Studies on larger scales are rare due to large efforts in data acquis...
Due to changes in management and climate change many semi-arid areas are prone to increased runoff, soil erosion and soil degradation. For these areas runoff is therefore an important component of the hydrological cycle and correct prediction is necessary. Research in a small semi-arid catchment in the Spanish Dehesas pointed out that a significant...
Projects
Projects (5)
We are currently working on a special issue in HESS and ESSD on the topic of "Linking landscape organisation and hydrological functioning: from hypotheses and observations to concepts, models and understanding". Anyone interested in submitting a paper to this special issue is invited to check out the following websites for more detail on the special issue and how to submit papers:
https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/special_issue985.html
https://www.earth-syst-sci-data.net/special_issue13_985.html
