Pascal Benard

Key Work Areas

In my research I focus on water repellency in soil and how it is affected by a heterogeneous distribution of wettability on the pore scale. My early studies treated the mechanism of mucilage deposition in drying soil and its effect on water repellency in the rhizosphere. We developed a pore-network model to simulate the infiltration into mucilage affected soil. My aim is to generalize our approach and apply our concept to a range of soils affected by water repellency.

Dry mucilage bridge connecting adjacent glass beads after drying of a water saturated mucilage-glass bead mixture