367-6 Fragipan Influence On Hydropedological Properties of Benchmark Soilscapes In West Virginia.



Wednesday, October 19, 2011: 2:40 PM
Henry Gonzalez Convention Center, Room 006D, River Level

ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN

Soil wetness and the interactions between soil and water influence the potential uses of soil and must be considered when making decisions regarding land use and management.  The strategic placement of hydrologic monitoring instrumentation on a benchmark soilscape is critical toward providing the users of soil information with reliable predictability of water movement at the soil-water interface.  A hydropedologically significant study site that satisfies the benchmark soilscape criteria as defined by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) was selected for this research.  Because of the high cost of performing investigations and research, benchmark soils are targeted and the information gleaned from those studies is extrapolated to other like regions.  The area of this research consists of a 53 ha catchment located approximately 15 km east of Morgantown, West Virginia in Coopers Rock State Forest.  The catchment is in a mature deciduous forest in Major Land Resource Area-127.  Piezometric data confirm that the depth to the water is consistent with the first encounter of redoximorphic depletions as identified in the soil profile descriptions.  Results show that water is present in the layer immediately above the first fragipan layer encountered at all hillslope locations, attributed to the properties of the pan, with the exception of the backslope.  The water found at the backslope location is attributed to the properties of the soil deeper in the profile and not the properties at the initial fragipan contact.  As hypothesized, the footslope location is the wettest with saturation above the pan recorded throughout the entire leaf-off period and into much of the growing season. 
See more from this Division: S05 Pedology
See more from this Session: Pedology Research In Support of Soil Survey: I (Includes Graduate Student Competition)