Translating Soil Properties to Simulated Soil-Water Availability Under Forecasted Climate.

Hydrologic models often incorporate soil properties, including field capacity, total porosity, available-water holding capacity, soil thickness, and saturated hydraulic conductivity. Soil carbon content, which is expected to increase under soil-health management practices that include conservation tillage and cover crops, has been linked to hydrologic properties that include soil-water retention and hydraulic conductivity. This study hypothesizes that differences in hydrologic properties among different land management systems can be used to understand the resiliency of agricultural production during forecasted climate change for Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) 120. This current work quantifies those soil properties used in a hydrologic model of plant available soil-water in two loess catenas under two different land managements: hay production and forest. Equation-derived estimates at each landscape position will be validated using field and laboratory data.