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| Titel |
Water infiltration and hydraulic conductivity in a natural Mediterranean oak forest: impacts of hydrology-oriented silviculture on soil hydraulic properties |
| VerfasserIn |
Simone Di Prima, Vincenzo Bagarello, Inmaculada Bautista, Artemi Cerdà, Sebastiano Cullotta, Antonio del Campo, María González-Sanchis, Massimo Iovino, Federico Maetzke |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2016
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 18 (2016) |
| Datensatznummer |
250121820
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2016-671.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| In the last years researchers reported an increasing need to have more awareness on the
intimate link between land use and soil hydrological properties (soil organic matter storage,
water infiltration, hydraulic conductivity) and their possible effects on water retention (e.g.,
Bens et al., 2006; del Campo et al., 2014; González-Sanchis et al., 2015; Molina and
del Campo, 2012). In the Mediterranean ecosystems, special attention needs to be
paid to the forest–water relationships due to the natural scarcity of water. Adaptive
forest management (AFM) aims to adapt the forest to water availability by means of
an artificial regulation of the forest structure and density in order to promote tree
and stand resilience through enhancing soil water availability (del Campo et al.,
2014).
The opening of the canopy, due to the removal of a certain number of trees, is an
important practice for the management of forests. It results in important modifications to the
microclimatic conditions that influence the ecophysiological functioning of trees (Aussenac
and Granier, 1988).
However, the effect of thinning may vary depending on the specific conditions of the
forest (Andréassian, 2004; Brooks et al., 2003; Cosandey et al., 2005; Lewis et al., 2000;
Molina and del Campo, 2012). Different authors reported that a reduction in forest cover
increases water yield due to the subsequent reduction in evapotranspiration (Brooks et al.,
2003; González-Sanchis et al., 2015; Hibbert, 1983; Zhang et al., 2001). On the other hand,
the water increase may be easily evaporated from the soil surface (Andréassian,
2004).
In this context, determining soil hydraulic properties in forests is essential for
understanding and simulating the hydrological processes (Alagna et al., 2015; Assouline and
Mualem, 2002), in order to adapt a water-saving management to a specific case, or to study
the effects of a particular management practice.
However, it must be borne in mind that changes brought about by the practice of forest
management persist for almost one century. It is therefore important to monitor managed sites
over longer periods, since short-term investigations are insufficient to detect changes that may
influence e.g. larger parts of watersheds (Bens et al., 2006). In addition, soil hydraulic
properties exhibit strong spatial and temporal variations and a large number of determinations
are required to assess the magnitude of the variation within the selected area (Logsdon and
Jaynes, 1996). The use of simple and rapid field techniques is therefore important to
obtain reliable data with a sustainable effort (Bagarello et al., 2014; Di Prima et al.,
2016).
The Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer (BEST) parameters procedure by Lassabatere et
al. (2006) is very attractive for practical use since it allows an estimation of both the soil
water retention and the hydraulic conductivity functions from cumulative infiltration
collected during a ponded field experiment and a few routinely laboratory determinations.
Lassabatere et al. (2006) suggested to measure the infiltration time of small volumes of water
repeatedly poured on the soil surface confined by a ring inserted to a depth of about 1 cm into
the soil. BEST considers a zero ponded infiltration model which was assumed to
be appropriate for an infiltration run performed with small, but positive, pressure
heads. This assumption was supported by numerical tests carried out by Touma et al.
(2007).
Recently, Di Prima (2015) developed a method to automate data collection with a
compact infiltrometer under constant head conditions. The device, maintaining a small
quasi-constant head of water (i.e., 2-3 mm) on the infiltration surface, is equipped with a
differential pressure transducer to measure the stepwise drop of water level in the reservoir,
and, in turn, to quantify cumulative infiltration into the soil. The data acquisition system has
been designed with low cost components and it is based on the open source microcontroller
platform, Arduino. The very limited cost of the system could represent a step towards a
cheaper and more widespread application of accurate and automated infiltration rate
measurement.
However, automatic data collection increases measurement speed, permits measurement
at short time intervals, improves measurement precision, allows for more efficient data
handling and analysis, and reduces the amount of effort involved and the potential
for errors that may occur when manual procedures are applied (Di Prima et al.,
2016).
The main objective of this study was to determine soil hydraulic properties by using the
combination of the automated infiltrometer and the BEST algorithm in a natural
Mediterranean oak forest. The forest is located in a typical Mediterranean area, within the
public forest La Hunde, Valencia (NE Spain). Two contiguous plots established
in previous studies conducted by González-Sanchis et al. (2015) were selected,
one of them was thinned reducing the forest density from 861 to 414 tree per ha.
Control plot was not thinned. These authors studied the water cycle during the
period 2012-2013. In particular, they characterized and compared the plots in term of
throughfall, stemflow, soil moisture and transpiration, concluding that the AFM
results in an increasing water availability, and at the same time in a substantial
maintenance of overland and surface flow, precluding therefore enhancement of erosion
rate.
In this paper, the focus was put on the impacts of thinning on soil hydraulic
properties, such as infiltration capacity, hydraulic conductivity and soil water retention,
determined by simplified and low-cost methods in connection with a hydrology-oriented
silviculture.
Acknowledgements
This study is a part of research projects: “Indagini sperimentali per la simulazione dei
processi di formazione del deflusso superficiale nei suoli boscati, Progetto FIRB 2012 –
MIMOSE”, and “CGL2011-28776-C02-02, HYDROSIL”
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