The effect of soil and pasture attributes on rangeland infiltration rates in northern Australia
| Autor: | G. W. Fraser, G. S. Stone |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Ecology Soil texture Soil classification 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences Soil carbon Plant litter complex mixtures 01 natural sciences Pasture Soil quality Infiltration (hydrology) Agronomy 040103 agronomy & agriculture 0401 agriculture forestry and fisheries Environmental science Surface runoff Ecology Evolution Behavior and Systematics 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| Zdroj: | The Rangeland Journal. 38:245 |
| ISSN: | 1036-9872 |
| DOI: | 10.1071/rj15099 |
| Popis: | Surface runoff is an important factor affecting rangeland pasture productivity and off-site sediment transportation. The application of rangeland biophysical models including sub-models of runoff and erosion provides one method to assess how management and climate variability affect the frequency and quantity of surface runoff events. However, there is often limited confidence in extrapolating runoff models developed from site-specific, hillslope field experiments to other locations due to variation in soil types and land condition states. To improve rangeland runoff models, we investigated three potentially important components at 18 paired land condition sites: (1) the importance of a variety of pasture attributes such as biomass and cover on infiltration rates; (2) the impact of surface soil texture on infiltration rates; and (3) whether soil carbon and/or soil bulk density provide valuable indicators of a site’s infiltration rates. The study found that surface soil texture was important when aboveground biomass was low and was found to have a ‘broken-stick’ relationship with infiltration rates (i.e. lowest infiltration occurred at the pivot point of 64% sand). Aboveground biomass, (which included standing grass, grass litter and tree litter) was the best soil or pasture attribute for predicting a plot’s infiltration capacity accounting for 68% of the variability. Plots with surface soil sand content greater than 60% and which had been exclosed for between 4 and 24 years had higher average surface soil carbon mass and concentration (~10%) than adjacent grazed plots. The exclosed plots also had higher surface soil porosity, which was associated with very high infiltration rates. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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