Heat and gas transport characteristics in differently-decomposed peaty soils at variably-saturated conditions

Abstract

Knowledge of heat and gas transport properties of the peat soils is important to simulate greenhouse gas behaviour and changes of soil-temperature in the wetlands. In this study, the heat and gas transport properties for differently-decomposed and variably saturated peat soils were measured in order to investigate the general analogies and differences between transport properties of the peat soils. As results, changes in liquid-phase tortuosity under different moisture conditions and volume shrinkage under dry conditions did not significantly affect the thermal conductivity, showing linear increase of thermal conductivity with moisture content. On the other hand, marked effects of soil-water blockage and volume shrinkage on the soil-gas diffusion coefficient under wet and dry conditions, respectively, were observed.