Medical imaging of soil water processes in engineered slopes

This project is designed to use medical imaging in order to obtain new valuable data necessary for the development of a new model to assess processes that influence the stability of engineered slopes affected by climate change conditions (repeated cycles of drying followed by extreme rainfall).

The use of medical imaging techniques to facilitate 3D visualisation and quantification of water flow in cracked unsaturated soil and to study how vegetation can release the pore pressure in the soil, increasing the stability of engineered slopes. Medical imaging techniques in conjunction with radiochemistry analytical methods, including autoradiography and gamma counting, are going to be used to test how vegetation can release the pore pressure in the soil, increasing the stability of engineered slopes.


Methodology
To obtained desirable results, further methods will be used according to the following objectives:
O1. Establish the applicability of various radiolabelled compounds of 89Zr for soil-water tracing.
O2. Applications of the new compound in water flow visualisation:
* Observe transient and heterogeneous infiltration,
* test Richards' theory to explore the driving mechanisms
* Demonstrate the micro-scale fluid mechanics associated with granular capillary barrier breakthrough.
* Observe water flow pathways and water storage in the cracks formed after wetting-drying cycles
O3. To examine the extent to which plants access tightly bound soil water (the 'two water worlds' hypothesis), the conditions under which this occurs and the mechanisms that plants use to do so.