Hydropedology: Bridging Disciplines, Scales, and Data

Abstract

tegrated soil and water studies in the context of agriculture (NRC, 1993a), groundwater vulnerability (NRC, There is a growing recognition that synergy could be generated 1993b), watershed management (NRC, 1999), earth sciby bridging traditional pedology with soil physics and hydrology to enhance integrated studies of soil-water relationships across spatial ences (NRC, 2001a), water resources (NRC, 2001b), and temporal scales. Hydropedology is suggested as such a bridge to and environmental sciences (NRC, 2001c). address: (i) knowledge gaps between pedology, soil physics, and hy-To address diverse soil and water issues at various drology; (ii) multiscale bridging from microscopic to mesoscopic and spatial and temporal scales, it becomes clear that bridgmacroscopic levels; and (iii) data translations from soil survey dataing traditional pedology with soil physics, hydrology, bases into soil hydraulic information. Knowledge gaps include flow and other related disciplines is necessary as well as synand transport in the structured unsaturated zone, soil structure quantiergistic. This bridging is justified not only by the interrefication, preferential flow modeling, landscape hydrology, soil spatial lationship among the disciplines but also by the complex and temporal variability, quantitative use of field soil morphology for nature of the problems. This review attempts to examine inferring soil hydrology, mechanisms controlling individual and interthe differences and connections between pedology, soil active soil-water processes at multiple scales, pedotransfer functions (PTFs), and others. Hydropedology integrates the pedon and land-physics, and hydrology and suggests that hydropedology scape paradigms to link phenomena occurring at microscopic (e.g., pores is a natural linkage among them. The bridging of disciand aggregates), mesoscopic (e.g., pedons and catenas), and macroplines, scales, and data is discussed here as an important scopic (e.g., watersheds, regional, and global) scales. Through approaches component for developing synergistic and integrative such as PTFs, hydropedology also facilitates the bridging of data behydropedology. tween soil survey databases and soil hydraulic information needed in simulation models. The bridging of disciplines, scales, and data PEDOLOGY, SOIL PHYSICS, represents potentially unique contributions of hydropedology to integrated soil and water sciences. It is hoped that hydropedology would AND HYDROLOGY contribute to our enhanced understanding of a variety of environmen-Traditionally, pedologists have focused on field soil tal, ecological, agricultural, and natural resource issues of societal profiles (pedons) as observed in the landscape, soil physimportance. These include water quality, soil quality, landscape proicists have emphasized theoretical studies and laboracesses, watershed management, nutrient cycling, contaminant fate, waste tory investigations using small soil samples (only in redisposal, precision agriculture, climate change, and ecosystem functions.cent decades ...

Multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis in examining scaling properties of the spatial patterns of soil water storage

“…This will also open a window of opportunity during aggregation of point measurements and disaggregation of remotely sensed data (Lin, 2003). However, a priori assumption of similarity in scaling laws between the fluctuations in the remotely sensed large scale and small field scale soil water storage data could be erroneous owing to the increased importance of localized factors as the resolution increases and need separate treatment.…”

A review of advances in hydropedology for application in South Africa

“…Hydropedology draws on the synergy generated by bridging the gap between traditional pedology, soil physics, and hydrology, to integrate the study of the soil-water relationships across spatial and temporal scales (Lin, 2003;Lin et al, 2005). They further suggest that hydropedology can: (a) address knowledge gaps between pedology, soil physics, and hydrology; (b) bridge scales, by application at microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic levels; and (c) transform soil survey data into soil hydraulic information.…”

“…Wilding and Lin (2006) further state that the emphasis of pedology is shifting from classification and inventory to understanding and quantifying spatially and temporal processes upon which the water cycle and ecosystems depend. The quantification of soil hydromorphology and modelling, predictions of soil and hydrologic properties and processes and data-bridging through pedotransfer functions are identified as current knowledge gaps (Lin, 2003;Lin et al, 2006;Wilding & Lin, 2006).…”

“…It is envisaged that hydropedology will contribute to the understanding of environmental, ecological, agricultural, and natural resource issues (Lin, 2003). These include water quality and soil quality, landscape processes and management, nutrient cycling, contaminant movement, waste disposal, precision agriculture, climate change, and ecosystem functions.…”

“…It was, however, not until 2003 that the science of hydropedology gained international recognition, after the publication of "Hydropedology: bridging disciplines, scales, and data" (Lin, 2003). A vision paper entitled "Hydropedology: synergistic integration of pedology and hydrology" followed , setting the stage for a myriad of papers to follow.…”