Abstract
Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) is a critical soil property affecting water flow and solute transport. In the Loess Plateau of China, sloping farmlands have been increasingly replaced by dam farmlands to achieve higher crop yields and more importantly to control soil erosions. It is necessary to understand the spatial pattern of near-surface K S on those newly formed dam farmlands, because the land surface processes (e.g., erosion that is controlled by overland flow) are largely determined by the spatial distribution of near-surface Ks. In this study, near-surface Ks (e.g., 5 cm depth of the surface layers) was measured using 336 undisturbed soil samples collected from two dam farmlands located in the Liudaogou catchment, a heavily studied catchment in the Loess Plateau of China. Based on classical and geostatistical analyses, the soil properties at the filled dam farmland showed more spatial variations compared to the silting dam farmland. Statistical scale-invariance was evaluated using the Hurst scaling parameter (H) for different soil parameters. The H values ranged from 0.646 to 0.877, indicating certain degrees of statistical scale-invariance and long-range dependency within the spatial range. The bulk density (Db), saturated water content (SW), sand content (SA), silt content (SI), and clay content (CL) were shown to affect the K S values significantly with SW, SI, and CL negatively and SA and Db positively correlated with K S . The highest K S value was found at the middle portion of the dam farmlands and the lowest value was found at the locations with the minimum occurrence of surface runoff. In addition, the areas with lowest K S values corresponded to the areas with the highest CL, SI, and SW. The results showed that disturbing soil structure by planting crops would benefit the floodwater control on dam farmlands due to increased Ks and the flooding on dam farmlands would be eased due to the silting process.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ampontuah EO, Robinson JS, Nortcliff S (2006) Assessment of soil particle redistribution on two contrasting cultivated hillslopes. Geoderma 132:324–343
Blanco-Canqui H, Gantzer CJ, Anderson SH, Alberts EE, Ghidey F (2002) Saturated hydraulic conductivity and its impact on simulated runoff for Claypan Soils. Soil Sci Soc Am J 66:1596–1602
Braun P, Molnar T, Kleeberg HB (1997) The problemofscaling in grid-related hydrological process modeling. Hydrol Process 11:1219–1230
Burt TP (2001) Integrated management of sensitive catchment systems. Catena 42:275–290
Cambardella C, Mooman TB, Novak JM, Parkin TB, Karlem DL, Turvo RF, Konopa AE (1994) Field scale variability of soil properties in central lowa soil. Soil Sci Soc Am J 47:1501–1511
Chen YZ, Luck SH (1989) Sediment sources and recent changes in the sediment load of Yellow River, China. In: Rindwanich S (ed) Land conservation for future generations. Ministry of Agriculture, Bangkok, pp 313–323
De Vries JJ, Simmers I (2002) Groundwater recharge: an overview of processes and challenges. Hydrogeol J 10:5–17
Gao ZL, Zhang XP (2007) Study on the construction and layout of check-dam in the Loess Plateau. The Literature Publisher, Beijing (in Chinese)
Grego CR, Vieira SR, Antinio AM, Rosa SCD (2006) Geostatistical analysis for soil moisture content under no tillage cropping system. Sci Agr 63:341–350
Hu W, Shao MA, Wang QJ, Fan J, Reichardt K (2008) Spatial variability of soil hydraulic properties on a steep slope in the Loess Plateau of China. Sci Agr 65:268–276
Kettler TA, Doran JW, Gilbert TL (2001) Simplified method for soil Particle—size determination to accompany soil quality analysis. Soil Sci Soc Am J 65:849–852
Lee CK (2002) Multifractal characteristics in air pollutant concentration time series. Water Air Soil Pollut 135:389–409
Massey FJ (1951) The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test of goodness of fit. J Am Stat Assoc 46:1–70
Mishra A, Kar S, Singh V (2007) Prioritizing structural management by quantifying the effect of land use and land cover on watershed runoff and sediment yield. Water Resour Manage 21:1899–1913
Nielsen DR, Bouma J (1985) Soil spatial variability. PUDOC, Wageningen, pp 2–30
Pardini G (2003) Fractal scaling of surface roughness in artificially weathered smectite-rich soil regoliths. Geoderma 117:157–167
Rai SN, Ramana DV, Singh RN (1998) On the prediction of ground-water mound formation in response to transient recharge from a circular basin. Water Resour Manage 12:271–284
Shi H, Shao M (2000) Soil and water loss from the Loess Plateau in China. J Arid Environ 45:9–20
Sobieraj J, Elsenbeer H, Cameron G (2004) Scale dependency in spatial patterns of saturated hydraulic conductivity. Catena 55:49–77
Tabachnick BG, Fidell LS (1996) Using multivariate statistics, 3rd edn. Harper Collins, New York
Tang KL, Hou QC, Wang BK, Zhang PC (1993) The environment background and administration way of Wind-Water Erosion Crisscross Region and Shenmu experimental area on the Loess Plateau. Memoir of NISWC, Academia Sinica and MWR 18:2-15 (in Chinese)
Teverovsky V, Taqqu M (1997) Testing for long-range dependence in the presence of shifting means or a slowly declining trend, using a variance-type estimator. J Time Ser Anal 18:279–304
Wang T, Istanbulluoglu E, Lenters J, Scott D (2009a) On the role of groundwater and soil texture in the regional water balance: an investigation of the Nebraska Sand Hills, USA. Water Resour Res 45, W10413, doi:10.1029/2009WR007733
Wang T, Zlotnik V, Šimunek J, Schaap M (2009b) Using pedotransfer functions in vadose zone models for estimating groundwater recharge in semiarid regions. Water Resour Res 45:W04412, doi:10.1029/2008WR006903
Wang T, Wedin D, Zlotnik V (2009c) Field evidence of a negative correlation between saturated hydraulic conductivity and soil carbon in a sandy soil. Water Resour Res 45, W07503, doi:10.1029/2008WR006865
Xu M, Wang G (2000) To accelerate the construction of check-dams in the Loess Plateau. Yellow River 22:26 (in Chinese)
Young RA (1980) Characteristics of eroded sediment. Trans ASAE 23:1139–1142, 1146
Zeleke TB, Si BC (2005) Scaling relationships between saturated hydraulic conductivity and soil physical properties. Soil Sci Soc Am J 69:1691–1702
Zhang HJ, Yan JP, Zhou LH (2007) The influence of Loess Plateau soil-saving dam on water resources: An example of typical soil-saving dam of Jiuyuangou in suide county. Journal of Northwest University (Natural Science Edition) 37:475–478 (in Chinese with English abstract)
Zhou X, Persaud N, Wang H (2004) Periodicities and scaling parameters of daily rainfall over semi-arid Botswana. Ecol Model 182:371–378
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, P., Shao, M. & Wang, T. Spatial Distributions of Soil Surface-Layer Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity and Controlling Factors on Dam Farmlands. Water Resour Manage 24, 2247–2266 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-009-9550-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-009-9550-y