Soil And Water Chemistry 100 Hours Certificate Course

1 Soil Chemistry: An Introduction

• Introduction
• Chemistry Revision
• Useful Chemical Terms
• Atoms
• Elements and Compounds
• Chemical formulae
• Bonds
• Parts of a Compound
• Inorganic, Organic and Biochemistry
• Other Common Biochemical Groups
• Chemical Names
• Arrangement of Atoms in a Compound
• Basic Chemical Reactions
• Calculating the Components of a Chemical
• Soil Redox Reactions
• Biogeochemistry and Soil Structure Review
• Pedosphere
• The Hydrological Cycle
• The Carbon Cycle
• The Nitrogen Cycle
• Mineralisation
• Chemoautotrophic Organisms
• Immobilisation
• Ammonium Fixation
• The Urea Cycle
• Soil Adsorption/Desorption

2 Soil Chemical Processes

• Introduction: How Soils Develop
• Soil profile
• Factors of Soil Formation in More Detail
• Weathering Processes of Soil Formation
• Physical Weathering
• Chemical Weathering
• Geochemical weathering
• Pedochemical Weathering
• Soil Profile Description
• The Features of Different Horizons
• Soil Classification and Description
• Great Soil Groups in Order of Degree of Profile Development and Degree of Leaching
• Key Properties of a Selection of Different Soil Groups
• Range of Soils Found on Parent Materials
• Northcote System
• Classification of British Soils
• Soils Types and Plant Growth
• Properties of Soils
• Physical and Chemical Properties of Soil
• Assessing the Soil
• Soil Characteristic Changes
• Texture and its Effect on Plant Growth
• Structure and its Effect on Plant Growth
• Consistence and its Effect on Plant Growth
• Depth of Profile and how it relates to Plant Growth
• Porosity and how it relates to Plant Growth
• pH and Its Effect on Plant Growth
• Adjusting the pH
• Use of Liming Materials to Raise pH
• Cation Exchange Capacity
• Soil Humus
• Carbon/Nitrogen Ratio
• Chemical Terms Revision

3 Soil-Chemical Testing

• Introduction
• Obtaining soil samples for testing
• Do’s and Don'ts of Soil Sampling
• Common Soil Tests
• Texture
• Structure
• pH
• Soil testing for nutrient analysis
• Tissue Analysis
• Other Soil Cations
• Potassium (K)
• Magnesium (Mg)
• Calcium (Ca)
• Sodium (Na)
• The CEC in Soils
• Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC) (me (meq)/100 g or cmol(+)/kg)
• Soil micronutrients
• Suggested Reading/Revision

4 Soil Chemistry – Applications in Agriculture

• Introduction
• Components of Soil Fertility
• Nutrient Pools
• Farm Chemicals
• Suggested Reading

5 Soil Chemistry – Applications in Environmental Management

• Introduction
• Soil Pollutants
• Sewage Sludge Use
• Redox Reactions
• Soil Remediation

6 Water Chemistry -- Introduction

• Water: Chemical and Physical Properties
• Hydrological Cycle
• Evaporation
• Precipitation
• Condensation
• Percolation
• Infiltration
• Interception
• Transpiration
• Runoff
• Storage
• Water Resources
• Basic Outlook between Surface Water and Groundwater
• Seawater
• Fresh Water
• Brackish Water
• Water Footprint
• Drought and Impact

7 Water – Chemistry of Water Sources and Drinking Water

• Water Sources and Theie Chemical Composition
• Chemistry of Seawater
• Chemistry of Groundwater
• Chemistry of Surface Water
• Chemistry of Potable Drinking Water

8 Water – Chemical Testing

• Introduction
• Water pH
• Testing pH
• Electrical Conductivity (EC)
• Testing EC
• Total Alkalinity
• Testing Total Alkalinity
• Total Hardness
• Obtaining Ca2+ and Mg2+ Concentrations
• Water Analysis
• Calculating Total Hardness

9 Water chemistry –applications in agriculture

• Subjects covered to be added

10 Water chemistry – applications in the environment management

• Subjects covered to be added

11 Temperature effects of water and general health

• Subjects covered to be added

Soils are affected by a multitude of factors. The simplest "external" factors affecting soils are contaminants and pollutants. Contaminants are usually considered things added by humans, things that have been introduced to the environment or soil environment. Pollutants may be the result of human intervention, or naturally occurring. This means a contaminant is always a pollutant, but a pollutant is not always a contaminant.

Managing these external factors is an important part of keeping soil healthy and productive. The presence of contaminants and pollutants can seriously impact plant growth, or replanting. It can also affect human and livestock health through accumulation in the plant. In smaller amounts, this may be of a little issue. In many cases, however, biomagnification can make a seemingly harmless amount of pollutant quite dangerous.

SOIL POLLUTANTS

There are a wide range of different pollutants that can contaminate the chemistry of soils, both inorganic and organic chemicals, from a wide variety of sources including pesticides, industrial wastes, and the results of all types of other human activity.
A useful way of describing contaminated soils was proposed by R.F. Isbell in 1996, as follows:

• Cumulic Soils – Soils where man-made materials have been deposited. (e.g. shell midden)
• Hortic Soils – Soils which have had compost, manure or other organic materials incorporated into the surface layers.
• Garbic Soils – Soils used to bury landfill waste with high levels of organic matter, which commonly develops methane or land fill gasses.
• Urbic Soils – Soils used to bury landfill waste with low levels of organic matter, that does not develop land fill gasses. These are commonly called “brownfill” sites.
• Dredgic Soils – Soils with large amounts of mineral materials dredged from bodies of water, or tailings ponds from mining.
• Spolic Soils – Soils created on mineral materials from land disturbed by construction or mining.
• Scalpic Soils – Soils that result from scalping (removing) surface and near surface layers of the ground. (e.g. when levelling or terracing ground for housing, industrial or even agricultural development)

More specifically contaminated soils may include:

• Inorganic Contaminants (e.g. Arsenic, Barium, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium, Copper, Lead, Manganese, Mercury, Nickel and Zinc)
• Organic contaminants (e.g. B-tex, Total recoverable hydrocarbons, Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins(PCDD), Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), Cyanides, and Chlorinated pesticides (e.g. Aldrin, Dieldrin, Heptachlor, Chlordane, DDT)

The existence of contaminants in any locality is greatly influenced by both historic and current land use and treatment of soil. Where soils are more freely draining, or are cultivated to a certain depth, the concentration of pollutants may be diluted; in undisturbed soils with high colloid or clay content, pollutants may be held in the soil, close to the surface in much higher concentrations for much longer periods.