探索“透明”土壤体:土壤孔隙学的时代已经启航

Explore the“Transparent”Soils:Soilporelogy Has Sailed

土壤是地球表面由固、液、气三相组成的疏松多孔介质体,土壤物理、化学和生物学等过程主要发生在液相和气相填充的土壤孔隙中及其与固相的交界面。随着无损探测土壤孔隙结构、土壤生物化学原位分析和计算机模拟等技术的快速发展和计算能力的提升,从土壤孔隙的形态、结构和功能的角度,原位、直观、精确地研究土壤中动态发生的各种过程成为可能,推动了对真实土壤中各种微观过程与机制的研究。基于前期的研究进展,本文提出,研究透明土壤体的物理学—土壤孔隙学(Soilporelogy)的时代已经启航。土壤孔隙学主要针对土壤孔隙空间,研究其动态变化与土壤物理、土壤化学和土壤生物(生态)互作过程及其效应。以土壤孔隙学为主线,本文首先介绍了获取土壤孔隙方法的进步,进而论述了基于土壤孔隙的流体运动、生物化学过程、根系和生物活动以及土壤微观生态学等的试验和模拟研究。最后,本文对土壤孔隙学的研究方法和理论发展方向进行了展望,相信基于土壤孔隙的研究会推动土壤学研究新的发展。

Soil is a porous medium composed of solid,liquid and gas phases.Soil physical,chemical and biological processes mainly occur in soil pores that are filled with liquid or gas and at the interface of soil pore and solid.With the rapid development of non-destructive detection tools that can reveal the three-dimensional(3D)structure of soil pore system,the in situ methods to measure soil biochemical processes,coupled with computer simulations capacity,it is now possible to study dynamic soil processes intuitively and accurately at pore scale considering soil pore morphology,structure and function.This can provide in-depth understanding of soil microscopic hydro-ecological processes and functions that occur in real soil environment.Based on soil pore related research progresses,we propose that the era of the physics of transparent soils,i.e.Soilporelogy,has sailed.Soilporelgy studies soil physical,chemical and biological properties and processes and their interactions from the viewpoint of soil pore space.In this paper,we firstly introduced the methodological progress to acquire the 3D soil pore structure,and then discussed the experimental and simulation studies based on fluid movement,biochemical processes,root and biological activities,as well as soil microscopic eco-hydrology in soil pores.Finally,we proposed the research methods and theoretical development direction of Soilporelogy.It is quite promising that the study based on soil pores will promote the new development of soil science research.