TY - JOUR

T1 - Reviewing and analyzing shrinkage of peat and other organic soils in relation to selected soil properties

AU - Seidel, Ronny

AU - Dettmann, Ullrich

AU - Tiemeyer, Bärbel

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the technicians Thomas Viohl, Dirk Lempio and Adina Schlegel, and the student assistants Lena Lüttjohann and Maria Júlia Schmitt for their laboratory support. The research was part of the "Establishment of the German peatland monitoring program for climate protection—Part 1: Open land" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Further investigated samples originate from the FACCE‐JPI ERA‐NET Plus project on Climate Smart Agriculture on Organic Soils (CAOS) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant No. 031A543A, the German Agricultural Soil Inventory funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, SWAMPS (ZW 6–85003757) and “Gnarrenburger Moor” (ZW 6–85023359) funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Lower Saxony Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection and the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment, Energy and Climate Protection and KlimDivMoos funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (AZ 105.1‐3234/1‐13‐3) and the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU, AZ 33305/01‐33/0).

PY - 2023/9/12

Y1 - 2023/9/12

N2 - Peat and other organic soils (e.g., organo-mineral soils) show distinctive volume changes through desiccation and wetting. Important processes behind volume changes are shrinkage and swelling. There is a long history of studies on shrinkage which were conducted under different schemes for soil descriptions, nomenclatures and parameters, measurement approaches, and terminologies. To date, these studies have not been harmonized in order to compare or predict shrinkage from different soil properties, for example, bulk density or substrate composition. This, however, is necessary to prevent biases in the determination of volume-based soil properties or for the interpretation of elevation measurements in peatlands, in order to predict carbon dioxide emissions or uptake caused by microbial decomposition or peat formation. This study gives a comprehensive overview of shrinkage studies carried out in the last 100 years. Terminology and approaches are systematically classified. In part I, the concepts for shrinkage characteristics, measurement methods, and model approaches are summarized. Part II is a meta-analysis of shrinkage studies on peat and other organic soils amended by own measurement data obtained by a three-dimensional structured light scanner. The results show that maximum shrinkage has a wide range from 11% to 93% and is strongly affected by common soil properties (botanical composition, degree of decomposition, soil organic carbon, and bulk density). Showing a stronger correlation, bulk density was a better predictor than soil organic carbon, but maximum shrinkage showed a large spread over all types of peat and other organic soils and ranges of bulk density and soil organic carbon.

AB - Peat and other organic soils (e.g., organo-mineral soils) show distinctive volume changes through desiccation and wetting. Important processes behind volume changes are shrinkage and swelling. There is a long history of studies on shrinkage which were conducted under different schemes for soil descriptions, nomenclatures and parameters, measurement approaches, and terminologies. To date, these studies have not been harmonized in order to compare or predict shrinkage from different soil properties, for example, bulk density or substrate composition. This, however, is necessary to prevent biases in the determination of volume-based soil properties or for the interpretation of elevation measurements in peatlands, in order to predict carbon dioxide emissions or uptake caused by microbial decomposition or peat formation. This study gives a comprehensive overview of shrinkage studies carried out in the last 100 years. Terminology and approaches are systematically classified. In part I, the concepts for shrinkage characteristics, measurement methods, and model approaches are summarized. Part II is a meta-analysis of shrinkage studies on peat and other organic soils amended by own measurement data obtained by a three-dimensional structured light scanner. The results show that maximum shrinkage has a wide range from 11% to 93% and is strongly affected by common soil properties (botanical composition, degree of decomposition, soil organic carbon, and bulk density). Showing a stronger correlation, bulk density was a better predictor than soil organic carbon, but maximum shrinkage showed a large spread over all types of peat and other organic soils and ranges of bulk density and soil organic carbon.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85165472291&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/vzj2.20264

DO - 10.1002/vzj2.20264

M3 - Review article

AN - SCOPUS:85165472291

VL - 22

JO - Vadose zone journal

JF - Vadose zone journal

SN - 1539-1663

IS - 5

M1 - e20264

ER -