Loading...
Please wait, while we are loading the content...
Similar Documents
Impacts of soil management and climate on saturated and near-saturated hydraulic conductivity: analyses of the Open Tension-disk Infiltrometer Meta-database (OTIM)
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Blanchy, Guillaume Albrecht, Lukas Bragato, Gilberto Garré, Sarah Jarvis, Nicholas Koestel, John |
| Copyright Year | 2022 |
| Abstract | Saturated and near-saturated soil hydraulic conductivities $K_{h}$ $(mm.h^{-1}$) determine the partitioning of precipitation into surface runoff and infiltration and are fundamental to soils’ susceptibility to preferential flow. Recent studies have found indications that climate factors influence $K_{h}$, which is highly relevant in the face of climate change. In this study, we investigated relationships between pedo-climatic factors and $K_{h}$ and also evaluated effects of land use and soil management. To this end, we collated the Open Tension-disk Infiltrometer Meta-database (OTIM), which contains 1297 individual data entries from 172 different publication sources. We analysed a spectrum of saturated and near-saturated hydraulic conductivities at matric potentials between 0 to 100 mm. We found that methodological details like the direction of the wetting sequence or the choice of method for calculating infiltration rates to hydraulic conductivities had a large impact on the results. We therefore restricted ourselves to a subset of 466 of the 1297 data entries with similar methodological approaches. Correlations between $K_{s}$ and $K_{h}$ at higher supply tensions decreased especially close to saturation, indicating a different flow mechanism at and very close to saturation as towards the dry end of the investigated tension range. Climate factors were better correlated to topsoil near-saturated hydraulic conductivities at supply tensions ≥ 30 mm than soil texture, bulk density and organic carbon content. We find it most likely that the climate variables are proxies for soil macropore networks created by respective biological activity, pedogenesis and climate specific land use and management choices. Due to incomplete documentation in the source publications of OTIM, we could investigate only a few land use types and agricultural management practices. Land use, tillage system and soil compaction significantly influenced $K_{h}$, with effect sizes appearing comparable to the ones of soil texture and soil organic carbon. The data in OTIM show experimental bias is present, introduced by the choice of measurement time relative to soil tillage, experimental design or data evaluation procedures. The establishment of best-practice rules for tension-disk infiltrometer measurements would therefore be helpful. Future studies are needed to investigate how climate shapes soil macropore networks and how land use and management can be adapted to improve soil hydraulic properties. Both tasks require large amounts of new measurement data with improved documentation on soil biology and land use and management history. |
| DOI | 10.5194/egusphere-2022-1295 |
| Volume Number | 2022 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Copernicus GmbH |
| Publisher Date | 2022-12-06 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Land Use Disk Infiltrometer |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
