Variation in soil saturated hydraulic conductivity along the hillslope of collapsing granite gullies |
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| Authors: | Xiaoqian Duan Yusong Deng Yu Tao Yangbo He Lirong Lin |
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| Affiliation: | Key Laboratory of Arable Land Conservation (Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yangtze River) of the Ministry of Agriculture, College of Resources and Environment, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China |
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| Abstract: | Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) affects the soil hydrological process and is influenced by many factors that exhibit strong spatial variations. To accurately measure Ks and its scale, spatial variability and relationship with collapsing gullies, we analysed four double-ring infiltrometer diameters in three soil layers during in situ experiments designed to measure Ks in two typical collapsing gullies (three slope sites) in Tongcheng County of China. The results showed that Ks increased with increasing inner ring diameter, but no significant difference existed between inner diameters of 30 and 40 cm. The Ks in red soil layers was higher than that in sandy soil layers, the transition layers had the lowest values. Ks also varied with slope position, gradually decreasing with distance from the gully head. The suggestion is that the spatial variation in Ks is affected not only by the intrinsic soil properties but also by the interaction with the collapsing gully. |
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| Keywords: | double-ring infiltrometer slope position soil layer scale variation spatial variation |
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