Soil and Water Research, 2013 (vol. 8), issue 3

Mapping the topsoil pH and humus quality of forest soils in the North Bohemian Jizerské hory Mts. region with ordinary, universal, and regression kriging: cross-validation comparisonOriginal Paper

Radim VAŠÁT, Lenka PAVLŮ, Luboš BORŮVKA, Ondřej DRÁBEK, Antonín NIKODEM

Soil & Water Res., 2013, 8(3):97-104 | DOI: 10.17221/62/2012-SWR  

North Bohemia belongs to one of the most heavily industrialized and polluted regions in Europe. The enormous acid deposition which culminated in the 1970s has largely contributed to the accelerated acidification process in the soils and consequently to the wide forest decline in North Bohemian mountains. In this paper we map the active topsoil pH and humus quality with ordinary, universal, and regression kriging and compare the accuracy of resulting maps with cross-validation. For the regression kriging we use two types of spatially exhaustive auxiliary information, first the altitude derived from digital elevation model and second the land cover classes...

Evaluation of ground penetrating radar and vertical electrical sounding methods to determine soil horizons and bedrock at the locality DehtářeOriginal Paper

Eva NOVÁKOVÁ, Miloš KAROUS, Antonín ZAJÍČEK, Magda KAROUSOVÁ

Soil & Water Res., 2013, 8(3):105-112 | DOI: 10.17221/6/2012-SWR  

Recently, geophysical methods have been widely used in many fields including pedology. Two of them, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and vertical electrical sounding (VES) were employed at the Dehtáře experimental site with the aim to evaluate their application in the Cambisol and Stagnosol soil types and crystalline bedrock survey in Czech conditions. These measurements were complemented by the classical soil survey using a gouge auger. As a result, interpreted soil and rock environment profiles were obtained, with the identification of boundaries of Bg, C, and R soil horizons and bedrock at various degrees of weathering. The interpretation of measurement...

Effects of agricultural conservation practices on oxbow lake watersheds in the Mississippi River alluvial plainOriginal Paper

Scott Stephen KNIGHT, Martin Anderson LOCKE, Sammie SMITH Jr.

Soil & Water Res., 2013, 8(3):113-123 | DOI: 10.17221/45/2012-SWR  

Agricultural lands are considered to be a major source of nonpoint source pollutants such as sediment, pesticides and nutrients in the United States. Conservation practices have been tested for their effectiveness in reducing agricultural related pollutants on smaller scales, but farm watershed scale assessments of these practices are limited and few of these have evaluated the impacts on downstream ecology. Several projects focused on oxbow lake watersheds in the Mississippi River alluvial plain were designed to utilize working farms to evaluate primary pollutants in water resources and to identify conservation practices that are most effective in...

Temporal variations of runoff and sediment in different soil clay contents using simulated conditionsOriginal Paper

Mehdi BASHARI, Hamid Reza MORADI, Mir Masoud KHEIRKHAH, Majid JAFARI-KHALEDI

Soil & Water Res., 2013, 8(3):124-132 | DOI: 10.17221/60/2012-SWR  

Soil clay content (SCC) plays an essential role in the processes of infiltration, seal and crust formation, runoff, and soil erosion. The role played by SCC in water erosion has received much attention in recent years. Hence, in order to investigate these effects on a small scale, a simulation experiment was conducted. Soil lacking clay content was combined with 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50% of clay soil, respectively. The experimental setup consisted of rectangular metal plots (1.5 × 1 m) comprising soil with selected combinations of clay content, placed at a 9% slope. Six treatments, three replicates each (totally 18 plots), were exposed to simulated...

Selection of catchment descriptors for the physical similarity approach. Part I: Theory.Original Paper

Martin HEŘMANOVSKÝ, Pavel PECH

Soil & Water Res., 2013, 8(3):133-140 | DOI: 10.17221/22/2012-SWR  

This paper focuses on a description of the method used for the identification of optimal catchment descriptors for the physical similarity approach consisting of a scheme for the identification of optimal catchment descriptors and the procedure for finding hydrologically homogeneous regions using inverse clustering. Andrews' curves are used as the basis for homogeneity checking. The identification of an optimum catchment descriptor is based on the assumption that the addition of an optimal catchment descriptor to a predefined set of catchment descriptors improves the accuracy of model parameter estimation within a set of tested catchments. Two criteria...