Spatial variability of soil hydraulic conductivity and runoff generation types in a small mountainous catchment

Autor: Rensheng Chen, Yong Yang, Junfeng Liu, Chuntan Han, Zhangwen Liu, Yaoxuan Song
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Mountain Science. 17:2724-2741
ISSN: 1993-0321
1672-6316
DOI: 10.1007/s11629-020-6258-1
Popis: As an important soil property, saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) controls many hydrological processes, such as runoff generation types, soil moisture storage and water movement. Because of the extremely harsh natural environmental conditions and soil containing a significant fraction of gravel fragments in high-elevation mountainous catchments, the measurement data of Ks and other soil properties are seriously lacking, which leads to poor understanding on its hydrological processes and water cycle. In this study, the vertical variation (0–150 cm) of Ks and other soil properties from 38 soil profiles were measured under five different land cover types (alpine barren, forest, marshy meadow, alpine shrub and alpine meadow) in a small catchment in Qilian Mountains, northwestern China. A typical characteristic of soil in mountainous areas is widespread presence of rock and gravel, and the results showed that the more rock and gravel in the soil, the higher Ks and bulk density and the lower the soil capillary porosity, field water capacity and total porosity. The Ks of the lower layer with rock and gravel (18.49 ± 10.22 mm·min−1) was significantly higher than that of the upper layer with relatively fine textured soil (0.18 ± 0.18 mm-min−1). The order of values of the Ks in different land cover types was alpine barren, forest, alpine shrub, marshy meadow and alpine meadow, and the values of the Ks in the alpine barren were significantly higher than those of other land covers. Most rainfall events in the research catchment had low rain intensity (
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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