Skip to main content
Log in

Spatial variability of soil hydraulic conductivity and runoff generation types in a small mountainous catchment

  • Published:
Journal of Mountain Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As an important soil property, saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) controls many hydrological processes, such as runoff generation types, soil moisture storage and water movement. Because of the extremely harsh natural environmental conditions and soil containing a significant fraction of gravel fragments in high-elevation mountainous catchments, the measurement data of Ks and other soil properties are seriously lacking, which leads to poor understanding on its hydrological processes and water cycle. In this study, the vertical variation (0–150 cm) of Ks and other soil properties from 38 soil profiles were measured under five different land cover types (alpine barren, forest, marshy meadow, alpine shrub and alpine meadow) in a small catchment in Qilian Mountains, northwestern China. A typical characteristic of soil in mountainous areas is widespread presence of rock and gravel, and the results showed that the more rock and gravel in the soil, the higher Ks and bulk density and the lower the soil capillary porosity, field water capacity and total porosity. The Ks of the lower layer with rock and gravel (18.49 ± 10.22 mm·min−1) was significantly higher than that of the upper layer with relatively fine textured soil (0.18 ± 0.18 mm-min−1). The order of values of the Ks in different land cover types was alpine barren, forest, alpine shrub, marshy meadow and alpine meadow, and the values of the Ks in the alpine barren were significantly higher than those of other land covers. Most rainfall events in the research catchment had low rain intensity (<0.04 mm·min−1), and deep percolation (DP) was the dominant runoff generation type. When the rainfall intensity increased (0.11 mm·min−1), subsurface stormflow (SSF) appeared in the alpine meadow. Infiltration excess overland flow (IOF), SSF and DP existed simultaneously only when the rainfall intensity was extremely high (1.91 mm·min−1). IOF and SSF were almost never appeared in the alpine barren because of high Ks. The alpine barren was the main runoff-contributed area in the mountainous catchment because of high Ks and low water-holding capacity, and the alpine shrub and meadow showed more ecological functions such as natural water storage and replenishment pool than contribution of runoff.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was carried out with financial support from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (Nos. 41401041, 41690141 and 41671029). The authors would like to thank Mr. MA Baoshan for field sampling assistance in the harsh natural environmental condition, and Dr. WANG Lei and Dr. LIU Xiaojiao for the laboratory analysis.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ren-sheng Chen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Yang, Y., Chen, Rs., Song, Yx. et al. Spatial variability of soil hydraulic conductivity and runoff generation types in a small mountainous catchment. J. Mt. Sci. 17, 2724–2741 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6258-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-020-6258-1

Keywords

Navigation