Using ancient and recent soil properties to design a conceptual hydrological response model

Variability of soil surface characteristics in a mountainous watershed in Valle del Cauca, Colombia: Implications for runoff, erosion, and conservation

“…As these databases emerge, further linkages will be needed to between hydrologists, ecologists, and biogeochemists to begin synthesizing and making progress towards reducing uncertainties in ecosystem service assessment and impact measurement (Bouwer et al, 2015;Hamel et al, 2018). Ponette-Gonzalez et al, (2014 report a summary of findings from tropical watersheds with expected changes in nutrient fluxes and also unexpected or complex changes resulting from conversion of forest cover to non-forest land uses.…”

“…For example, soil moisture dynamics, weathering, water table fluctuations, and acidification are a mixture of hydropedological processes influenced by water fluxes which Bouwer et al (2015) suggest could be used to construct hydrological response models based on accessible soil data. In their study, Bouwer et al (2015) offer a soilscape that relates recent soil water regime, flowpaths, and storage mechanics (as indicated by soil chemistry) to ancient soil water regime (as indicated by morphology) and current soil water regime indicated by hydrometric field measurements.…”

“…Hydrochemical and ecohydrological studies are still only recently uncovering dynamics that have previously been overlooked in the analysis of runoff generation, infiltration, and preferential deep water flow (Bonnesoeur et al, 2019;Bouwer et al, 2015;Hamel et al, 2018;Marchuk and Marchuk, 2018;Tebebu et al, 2017;Zhu et al, 2019). Penna et al (2018) and Hamel et al (2018) review a series of opportunities for interdisciplinary work in tracing ecosystem water fluxes that help initiate future agenda in research partnerships in the tropical Andes.…”

“…The intertwined nature of soil and water dynamics, referred to as hydropedology (Ma et al, 2017), show how each component is important for mapping, monitoring, and modeling in watershed studies. As conservation programs gain awareness and support among downstream users and industries interested in mitigating their impact on natural resources, research on hydropedology and these intertwined ecosystem services is increasing (Naeem et al, 2015), with attention often focused on short-term soil functioning and long-term soil pedogenic processes (Bouwer et al, 2015;de Lima et al, 2019;Hamel et al, 2018;Ma et al, 2017). Two of these main dynamics that conservation programs intend on remediating are related to the soil nutrients and hydraulic properties recharging shallow and deep aquifers (Buytaert et al, 2004).…”

Hydrological response in a savanna hillslope under different rainfall regimes

“…Ridolfi et al (2003) highlighted these hillslope complexities, including inter alia the spatial heterogeneity of soil properties; climatic variability (although generally uniform at the hillslope scale, may trigger mechanisms within the hillslope to alter its spatial dynamics); lateral redistribution of water along a hillslope because of the formation of a saturated zone within the soil; lateral sub-surface flow in the unsaturated zone; the longitudinal form and profile of a hillslope; and boundary conditions at the valley bottom of the hillslope. It has been advocated that the use of perceptual hydrological models, whilst being largely qualitative conceptualisations, offers good potential based on process understanding of key zones or 'reservoirs', and that these 'soft' data could be married to 'hard' hydrological observations (streamflow and soil water content) to facilitate the reduction in parameter uncertainty (Bouwer et al 2015;Lorentz et al 2003;Seibert & McDonnell 2002).…”