Heathland vegetation,soil moisture and dynamic contributing area

Gurnell (1978) demonstrated the potential of the composition of wet heathland vegetation as an indicator of hydrological processes in a small heathland catchment. The present paper investigates this potential and demonstrates that on a hillslope in the study catchment simple prediction equations for pressure head based entirely on position on the slope can be substantially improved by the inclusion of vegetation related variables. It is suggested that in this context the vegetation composition is largely reflecting soil permeability and that the remaining scatter around the prediction equations results from other factors controlling micro-scale variations in the vegetation pattern.