No abstract

The widespread preferential flow phenomenon has an important impact on the water resource allocation of vegetation restoration in karst regions. In this study, four kinds of water infiltration experiments were conducted on six kinds of vegetation types (Pinus yunnanensis Franch. var. tenuifolia plantation forestlands, Eucalyptus robusta Smith plantation forestlands, Platycladus orientalis (L.) Francoptmxjjkmsc plantation forestlands, secondary forestlands, scrublands, and natural grasslands) separately to evaluate the effect of vegetation restoration on preferential flow in karst regions. The distribution of soil water infiltration was visualized via Brilliant Blue staining (290 images of soil vertical section staining) and data were processed via structural equation model (SEM). Results showed that 15–35 mm water accumulation was beneficial to the visualization of preferential flow. The experimental statement of a higher matrix flow in grassland than in plantations made it possible to draw conclusions of economic importance. Therefore, undergrowth of vegetation coverage in plantation forestlands should be increased. Experimentally analyzing the water-vegetation-soil interaction, shows an increase in vegetation coverage inhibits the development of matrix flow, an increase in soil erodibility may inhibit the development of preferential flow, and an increase in soil clay content may promote the deepening of matrix flow depth. The artificial forest can improve the soil structure and can effectively restore the degree of soil fragmentation; vegetation can be restored reasonably to prevent desertification in karst regions. Therefore, identifying and analyzing the structure characteristics of the soil macropore network under the conditions of natural vegetation communities and artificial vegetation communities in karst-geologic settings is an urgent study, which can provide a reference for improving the restoration measures of artificial forests and sustainable forestry development in karst desertification areas.

Soil cracks significantly affect the preferential flow, and various uncertainties are associated with the effect of soil cracks on preferential flow in karst areas in Southwest China. This study investigated soil crack properties (inclusions, width, and configuration) by applying ground‐penetrating RADAR (GPR) to pedons. Blue dye‐tracing experiments were designed based on the geophysical detection results to assess the influences of crack inclusions (sand grains and rock fragments), crack widths (1, 1.5, and 2 cm), and configurations (I‐shape, V‐shape, and Λ‐shape) on preferential flow. The following results were obtained: (1) the GPR envelope can describe the configuration of isolated soil cracks; (2) soil cracks can accelerate infiltration and increase the maximum dye‐penetration depth, cumulative infiltration, and wetting‐front depth by averages of at least 5.2%, 63.2% and 4.4%, respectively; and (3) the I‐ and Λ‐shaped soil crack configurations contributed to preferential flow, but the preferential flow was not observed along the V‐shaped‐configuration‐crack pore paths despite the retardation of brilliant blue FCF. The I‐shaped configurations, with a crack width of 1.5 cm, were filled with rock fragments and had higher preferential flow ratios (18.2%–52.3%) and length indices (4.0%–33.8%) compared to the other configurations. In summary, inclusions, crack width, and configuration significantly influence the preferential flow (p < 0.05), and the influence of these soil crack properties on preferential flow cannot be neglected during vegetation restoration and groundwater security operations in karst areas.

Preferential flow paths have been widely characterized by many visualization methods. However, the differences in preferential flow paths under various land uses and their relationships to hydraulic properties remain uncertain. The objectives of this study are to (1) characterize preferential flow paths under various land uses (forest and orchard) by combining drainage and dye-staining methods and to (2) build a connection between preferential flow paths and hydraulic-related parameters and extract the proportion of preferential flow paths from the compounding effects of matrix flow and preferential flow. The dye-staining experiments were conducted in five sandy soils and one sandy clay loam in situ, including four soils from forest and two soils from orchards. A total of 47 soil cores, 4 cm in height and 9 cm in diameter, were collected in each layer of the dye-stained soils for drainage experiments in the laboratory. Dye coverage and hydraulically equivalent macropore parameters (macroporosity, pore size distribution, and number of macropores) and their relationships were analyzed. The results show that the volume of preferential flow is partly affected by the total macropore volume. The effect of macropores on preferential flow varies by macropore size distribution. Dye coverage exhibited a significant (P < 0.01) correlation with macroporosity (correlation coefficient 0.83). Based on the value of macroporosity or steady effluent rates, the part of the dye coverage that was due to preferential flow on the surface dye-stained soil (resulting from both matrix and preferential flow) could be identified in this study. Compared with orchards, forestland has more preferential flow paths in both surface soil and subsoil. Further studies are needed to quantify the 3-D preferential flow paths and build a connection between preferential flow paths and hydraulic properties.

The supply of environment-friendly products is an integral part of the green supply chain. Due to such reasons as lack of high-tech and lack of price competitiveness in contrast to traditional products, the manufacturers will not have incentive to produce and supply green products, so the Government should grant financial subsidies to producers which will compensate the profits entitled to them. Through the analysis based on game theory, the article concludes that there is disadvantage in constant subsidy and the variable subsidies will have more positive effects on the supply of environment-friendly products since the subsidy amount varies with the production scale.