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| Titel |
Soil management effects on infiltration and runoff at field scale in a hillslope vineyard |
| VerfasserIn |
Marcella Biddoccu, Stefano Ferraris, Andrea Pitacco, Eugenio Cavallo |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
en
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250128104
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-8054.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The soil management which is adopted in the vineyard’s inter-rows has a great influence on
soil hydraulic properties, and, consequently, on runoff and soil erosion processes at field
scale. The cultivation of soil in the vineyard’s inter-rows with tillage, as well as the
tractor traffic, is known to expose the soil to degradation and compaction, reducing
water infiltration and holding capacity and favouring runoff. On the other side,
the use of grass cover in the inter-row is one of the most common and effective
soil management practices adopted in order to reduce runoff and soil erosion in
vineyards.
The effects of inter-rows’ soil management on soil hydrological properties was evaluated
in two vineyard field-scale plots. The experiment was conducted from October, 2012 to
November, 2014, in the Alto Monferrato vine-growing area (Piedmont, NW Italy). A total of
80 infiltration tests were carried out in two vineyards plots, which inter-rows were managed
with conventional tillage and grass cover, respectively. Furthermore, a dataset of 29
rainfall-runoff events covering a wide range of topsoil characteristics was collected in the two
plots, along with soil water content monitoring, measurements and sampling of runoff in
order to determine the sediment yield. For 3 events 1-min rainfall intensity data has
been obtained from an optical disdrometer installed near the plots. The datasets
were analysed in order to identify correlations between rainfall characteristics, soil
properties and field-scale response in terms of runoff and soil erosion, at event temporal
scale.
The study shows that the soil tillage increased the hydraulic conductivity only for a
short period after its execution. However, in summer, just a month after tillage
execution, the topsoil was compacted and showed very low hydraulic conductivity,
thus summer storms with 10-min intensities greater than 20 mm h−1 were able to
cause hortonian runoff and high soil losses, up to 5.7 Mg ha−1 for a single event
in the period of observation. In the tilled vineyard-plot the highest runoff rates
were observed in late autumn and winter. In those seasons, despite the autumn
tillage which increase the hydraulic conductivity for a longer period, very high
saturation-excess runoff was observed, due to precipitation greater than 40 mm on wet
soil.
Runoff rates observed in the tilled vineyard were usually greater than those measured in
the field where grass cover was used. Hydraulic conductivity was higher in the grassed
vineyard than in the tilled one in summer, and lower in late autumn and winter. Runoff was
mainly due to saturation of the topsoil. High soil erosion was observed in the grassed
vineyard in winter, up to 1.2 Mg ha−1 during a long-duration rainfall event, related to high
runoff and large precipitation events. The grass cover generally reduced event runoff and
sediment yield, but it was less effective in occasion of large precipitation events during the
wet seasons than in other months. |
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