engleski

Water and solute transport in unsaturated zone of the Sava River, Croatia

The object of this study is unsaturated zone of unconfined Quaternary aquifer, located below Zagreb, capital of Croatia. Unsaturated zone consists of Pleistocene aeolian sediments and alluvial and proluvial Holocene sediments. Hydromorphic soils of different hydromorphic regime prevail in the Sava River valley. Sediments along the Sava River form the recent fluvial terrace, while Molic Fluvisols, Calcaric Fluvisols, Eutric Cambisols on Holocene deposits, and Eutric and Calcic Gleysols (FAO 1990), are developed on the Holocene terrace Romić and Romić (2003). The Sava River, which drains the area and feeds the aquifer, has been exposed to intensive pollution by mining, industry and urbanization in the past. The pharmaceutical and chemical industry, the city dump, the district-heating plant, and the airport are located in close proximity of the water-protection area. The goal of this study is detail sedimentological and pedological description of complete vertical profile through unsaturated zone and 1D modeling of water flow and solute transport. Laboratory work, which is in progress, includes mineralogical (XRD, CEC), chemical (trace elements using AAS) and sedimentological (grain size analysis) analyses of samples from investigated profile. Modelling will be performed using Hydrus 1D software (Šimůnek et al., 1998). With current study, we are trying to establish procedure for description, sampling, analysis and modelling of unsaturated zone profile of unconfined Quaternary aquifer. Future investigations will be expanded to more profiles in Zagreb aquifer area.

Zagreb aquifer; unsaturated zone; trace elements; pollution; modeling

U tiskanom zborniku radova objavljen je sažetak, a na DVD mediju cjeloviti rad.