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RESEARCH PAPER
Methodological recommendations for measurements with deuterium-labelled drops in the context of soil erosion caused by rain studies
1
Institute of Agrophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Doświadczalna 4, 20-290 Lublin, Poland
Final revision date: 2026-05-13
Acceptance date: 2026-07-01
Publication date: 2026-07-03
Corresponding author
Int. Agrophys. 2026, 40(3): 339-347
HIGHLIGHTS
- Identified key errors: evaporation and isotopic exchange in splash experiments
- Deuterium labeling enables splash water origin tracing reliably
- Monitor T, RH; use moderate δ²H (~1500‰) to limit equilibration
- Minimize experiment duration; standardize sampling time
- First methodological guidelines fill critical research gap
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Splash erosion represents the initial stage of rainfall-induced soil degradation. Among the many methods used to investigate this process, some employ labelled water as a tracer of splashed material however, studies utilizing deuterium-labelled water remain scarce. The application of deuterium-labelled water in splash measurements introduces methodological challenges that may significantly affect results and are often negligible in other soil science or hydrological investigations. The aim of this study was to identify the principal sources of potential error and to propose methodological recommendations for experiments using deuterium-labelled water. Laboratory splash experiments were conducted with drops of 4.2 mm enriched in deuterium (δ 2H~1500‰ vs. VSMOW), falling from various heights of 1-7 m under controlled conditions, including temperature (20°C) and relative humidity (value depending on the experimental variant). The key recommendations are: i) the temperature and relative humidity should be monitored; ii) the isotopic enrichment must be sufficiently high to enable detection of the studied process, yet low enough to limit the drive toward thermodynamic equilibrium; iii) to minimize evaporation effects, experiment duration should be kept as short as possible. However, since sampling time cannot be eliminated, it should remain constant within a given experiment to reduce systematic error in trend analysis.
FUNDING
This paper was financed from the funds of the National Science Centre, Poland No. 2022/47/D/ST10/02480.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors do not declare any conflict of interest.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Jaromin-Gleń Katarzyna: Collection and/or assembly of data; Data analysis and interpretation; Writing the article; Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. Polakowski Cezary: Research concept and design; Collection and/or assembly of data; Data analysis and interpretation; Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. Mazur Rafał: Collection and/or assembly of data; Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. Sroka Dominik: Collection and/or assembly of data; Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. Berus Wojciech: Collection and/or assembly of data; Final approval of the article. Beczek Michał: Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. Bieganowski Andrzej: Research concept and design; Data analysis and interpretation; Critical revision of the article, Final approval of the article. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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| eISSN: | 2300-8725 |
| ISSN: | 0236-8722 |
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