Hill slopes in wine producing regions of the South Island of New Zealand are rarely developed for viticulture despite having the capability. Viticultural development in these wine producing regions is primarily limited to flat areas despite the benefits of hill slopes that can increase productivity and variability of the grapes grown. The objective of this study is to assess the viability and development of hill slopes in the South Island of New Zealand with regards to industrial viticultural development. Site investigation in combination with background research identified five fundamental characteristics (i.e., elevation, slope angle, aspect, temperature and rainfall) that are required for proper assessment as well as industrial viticultural practices and concerns specific to the South Island. A slope angle of 15° was determined to be suitable for viticultural development as this angle is the maximum angle for machinery to work and operate safely. Additionally, this slope angle encourages the benefits that hill slopes provide and slope stability issues are limited. GIS suitability mapping demonstrates that ~0.7% of the South Island of New Zealand is viable for hill slope viticultural development using elevation, slope angle, aspect, temperature and rainfall characteristics to produce the maps. Temperature and sunlight relationships via data logger analysis support the various benefits that hill slope development provides, including increasing the number of growing degree days (GDD) by 1, increasing air and soil temperature and increasing sunlight exposure by 3,000 Lux. Overall, findings identify the extent and benefits that hill slopes may provide in major grape regions within the South Island of New Zealand.

The measurement of topography is a key aspect of geomorphology research, and the prevalence of high resolution topographic data predominantly from Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) in the past decade has facilitated a revolution in the quantitative study of planetary surface processes. From this increased quality of data, many techniques have been developed to quantify processes occurring at diverse spatial and temporal scales; from the flow of material down a hill-slope to the uplift and subsequent erosion of mountain ranges. Such insights have identified signatures of processes imprinted on landscapes. These include physical processes such as wildfires and landslides, biological processes such as animal burrowing and tree throw, in addition to tectonic uplift and large scale sediment transport. These signatures are observed in both the morphology of hill-slopes and their connection to the channel network, thereby allowing measures of topography to provide quantitative measures of the rates of processes shaping the Earth’s surface. This thesis is concerned with the development and application of reproducible topographic analysis techniques, to yield new insights into hill-slope sediment transport and to provide accurate metrics for quantifying hill-slope properties, including hill-slope length (LH) and relief (R). The measurement of hill-slope length can be performed through the inversion of drainage density, or the analysis of slope-area plots. However, in Chapter 3 I present a method which quantifies the length of hill-slopes through the generation of hill-slope flow paths. The flow path method is shown to be the most reliable of these methods, and is able to provide measurements of the properties of individual hill-slopes, rather than the basin or landscape averaged techniques commonly employed. The topographic predictions of the LH-R relationship of the nonlinear sediment flux law, stating that the rate of sediment transport is nonlinearly dependent on hill-slope gradient, are also tested and contrasted with the predictions of a linear sediment flux law. This provides the first purely topography based test of a sediment flux law. Through the fitting of a prediction of the nonlinear flux derived model to these measurements of hill-slope length and relief, the critical gradient of each landscape, a key parameter in the nonlinear sediment flux law, is also constrained. A nondimensional framework for erosion rate and relief, which allows the comparison of hill-slopes with differing properties in order to identify landscape transience is presented in Chapter 4. This analysis technique builds upon the work performed in Chapter 3, utilizing similar measurements of hill-slope properties, including hill-slope length and relief. The software produced alongside this chapter is shown to reproduce the results of previous studies which have employed this technique. The method is employed on a new landscape in Coweeta, North Carolina where subtle evidence of topographic decay is presented, consistent with models of Miocene topographic rejuvenation in this location. A detailed sensitivity analysis of the technique is performed, highlighting the need for careful parameterization of any analysis, to ensure meaningful results. This method is also employed to estimate an average critical gradient for each landscape, presenting more evidence building upon the evidence presented in Chapter 3 that a broad range of critical gradients exist for any given landscape. The work presented in Chapter 5 attempts to constrain the limits of the geomorphic analyses presented in the previous chapters, when they are applied to low resolution topographic data. A series of topographic datasets are generated at resolutions ranging from 1 to 30 meters upon which topographic analyses are performed. I test two common channel extraction algorithms and find that a simple geometric method, which identifies tangential curvature thresholds in the landscape, provides a more accurate representation of the channel network in low resolution topographic data than a process based method which identifies the topographic signature of channel initiation. The measurement of curvature is also evaluated, and alongside the estimation of diffusivity, is shown to be sensitive to data resolution, however landscape properties also exhibit a strong control on these measurements, where the larger scale curvature signal of Gabilan Mesa, California is more robust than the sharp ridgelines of Santa Cruz Island, California. Finally, the techniques developed in Chapter 3 to measure hill-slope length and relief are tested and are shown to be robust at grid sizes up to 30 meters, with the caveat that an accurate channel network can be constrained.

Die Zielsetzung der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Beschreibung hydrophober Bodeneigenschaften und deren Auswirkungen auf Oberflächenabfluss und Erosion auf verschiedenen Skalen. Die dazu durchgeführten Untersuchungen fanden auf einer Rekultivierungsfläche im Braunkohlegebiet Welzow Süd (Südostdeutschland) statt. Die Prozesse wurden auf drei Skalen untersucht, die von der Plotskala (1m²) über die Hangskala (300m²) bis zur Betrachtung eines kleinen Einzugsgebietes (4ha) reichen. Der Grad der hydrophoben Bodeneigenschaften wurde sowohl direkt, über die Bestimmung des Kontaktwinkel, als auch indirekt, über die Bestimmung der Persistenz, ermittelt. Dabei zeigte sich, dass der Boden im Winterhalbjahr hydrophil reagierte, während er im Sommerhalbjahr hydrophobe Bodeneigenschaften aufwies. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass ansteigende Bodenwassergehalte, die in der Literatur häufig als Ursache für einen Wechsel der Bodeneigenschaften angegeben werden, auf dieser Fläche nicht zu einem Umbruch der Bodenbedingungen führen. Stattdessen kam es als Folge des Auftauens von gefrorenem Boden zu hydrophilen Bodeneigenschaften, die zu einem Anstieg des Bodenwassergehalts führten. Räumliche Unterschiede zeigten sich in den geomorphologischen Einheiten. Rinnen und Rillen wiesen seltener hydrophobe Eigenschaften als die Zwischenrillenbereiche und Kuppen auf. Diese räumlichen und zeitlichen Variabilitäten wirkten sich auch auf den Oberflächenabfluss aus, der als Abflussbeiwert (ABW: Quotient aus Abfluss und Niederschlag) untersucht wurde. Der ABW liegt auf Böden mit hydrophoben Bodeneigenschaften (ABW=0,8) deutlich höher als bei jenen mit hydrophilen Eigenschaften(ABW=0,2), wie sie im Winter oder auf anderem Substrat vorzufinden sind (diese Werte beziehen sich auf die Plotskala). Betrachtet man die Auswirkungen auf unterschiedlichen Skalen, nimmt der Abflussbeiwert mit zunehmender Flächengröße ab (ABW = 0,8 auf der Plotskala, ABW = 0,5 auf der Hangskala und ABW = 0,2 im gesamten Gebiet), was in den hydrophil reagierenden Rillen und Rinnen auf der Hangskala und dem hydrophilen Substrat im Einzugsgebiet begründet ist. Zur Messung der Erosion wurden verschiedene, zum Teil neu entwickelte Methoden eingesetzt, um eine hohe zeitliche und räumliche Auflösung zu erreichen. Bei einer neu entwickelten Methode wird der Sedimentaustrag ereignisbezogen über eine Waage bestimmt. In Kombination mit einer Kippwaage ermöglicht sie die gleichzeitige Messung des Oberflächenabflusses. Die Messapparatur wurde für Gebiete entwickelt, die eine überwiegend grobsandige Textur aufweisen und nur geringe Mengen Ton und Schluff enthalten. Zusätzlich wurden zwei Lasersysteme zur Messung der räumlichen Verteilung der Erosion eingesetzt. Für die erste Methode wurde ein punktuell messender Laser in einer fest installierten Apparatur über die Fläche bewegt und punktuell Höhenunterschiede in einem festen Raster bestimmt. Durch Interpolation konnten Bereiche mit Sedimentabtrag von Akkumulationsbereiche unterschieden werden. Mit dieser Methode können auch größere Flächen vermessen werden (hier 16 m²), allerdings weisen die Messungen in den Übergangsbereichen von Rinne zu Zwischenrille große Fehler auf. Bei der zweiten Methode wird mit einer Messung ein Quadratmeter mit einer hohen räumlichen Auflösung komplett erfasst. Um ein dreidimensionales Bild zu erstellen, müssen insgesamt vier Aufnahmen von jeweils unterschiedlichen Seiten aufgenommen werden. So lassen sich Abtrag und Akkumulation sehr genau bestimmen, allerdings ist die Messung relativ aufwendig und erfasst nur eine kleine Fläche. Zusätzlich wurde der Sedimentaustrag noch auf der Plotskala erfasst. Die Messungen zeigen, korrespondierend zu den Bodeneigenschaften, große Sedimentausträge während des Sommerhalbjahrs und kaum Austräge im Winter. Weiterhin belegen die Ergebnisse eine größere Bedeutung der Rillenerosion gegenüber der Zwischenrillenerosion für Niederschlagsereignisse hoher Intensität (>25 mm/h in einem zehnminütigem Intervall). Im Gegensatz dazu dominierte die Zwischenrillenerosion bei Ereignissen geringerer Intensität (<20 mm/h in einem zehnminütigem Intervall), wobei mindestens 9 mm Niederschlag in einer Intensität von mindesten 3,6 mm/h nötig sind, damit es zur Erosion kommt. Basierend auf den gemessenen Abflüssen und Sedimentausträgen wurden Regressiongleichungen abgeleitet, die eine Berechnung dieser beiden Prozesse für die untersuchte Fläche ermöglichen. Während die Menge an Oberflächenabfluss einen starken Zusammenhang zu der Menge an gefallenem Niederschlag zeigt (r² = 0,9), ist die Berechnung des ausgetragenen Sedimentes eher ungenau (r² = 0,7). Zusammenfassend beschreibt die Arbeit Einflüsse hydrophober Bodeneigenschaften auf verschiedenen Skalen und arbeitet die Auswirkungen, die vor allem auf der kleinen Skala von großer Bedeutung sind, heraus. / The objective of the thesis is the investigation of water repellent soil conditions and their consequences on surface runoff and erosion by water on different scales. The test site is a lignite mining area situated in Welzow Süd (south east Germany). The processes are to investigate on three different scales, starting with a plot scale (1 m²), then a hill slope scale (300 m²) and, finally, with a small catchment area (4 ha). The level of water repellency was quantified by both direct (contact angle) and indirect measurement (persistence of the soil). The results show seasonal differences with hydrophilic soil conditions during winter and water repellent reactions during summer. For this change in soil conditions, the soil water content is pronounced in literature to be the most important factor. On the test site, the soil water content changed instead as a consequence of the thawing of the soil which affects the hydrophilic conditions of the soil itself. The spatial differences of the soil water content are related to rill and channel areas (hydrophillic) and to knoll areas (water repellent). Both the spatial as well as the temporal variation of the soil conditions affect surface runoff which is investigated as a runoff coefficient (RC: ratio of amount of surface runoff to amount of precipitation). The RC shows higher values on soil with water repellent conditions (RC=0.8) in comparison with the values on hydrophilic soils (RC=0.2). The hydrophilic conditions predominate in areas with different substrates and during the winter. Observations on different scales show a decreasing RC as the size of the area increases (RC = 0.8 on the plot scale, RC = 0.5 on the hill slope scale and RC = 0.2 for the entire catchment area). The reasons for this are the hydrophilic rill in the hill slope area and the hydrophilic substrate in the entire catchment area. The measurement of erosion, based on different methods, some of them just newly developed, quantifies in a good resolution sediment transport spatially as well as temporally. The central part of one of the newly developed approaches is a balance which quantifies an event based sediment output. This approach is coupled with a tipping bucket to measure surface runoff. The system has been developed for coarse textured areas with little amounts of sand and silt. Additionally, two laser systems are used to detect changes in the soil surface over the spatial distribution. The first method contains a laser which measures only a single point and has to be moved in a fixed apparatus above the soil surface in a well defined raster. The areas of sediment abrasion and the detachment areas are restricted by interpolation of the measurement results. This method enables measurements on large areas (16 m² in this project), but tends to result in a high level of errors in the transition zone between rill and interrill. The second laser system covered an area of 1 m² in high resolution. To construct a three-dimensional picture, four different pictures have to be taken from four different directions. This defines the abrasion and detachment areas in a very detailed manner, but the method is very time-consuming and covers only a small area. In addition, measurements on the plots collected the amount of sediment output on a small scale. These results show, corresponding to the water repellent soil conditions, high rates of sediment output during summer, but low rates during winter season. The results show also the dominance of rill erosion in comparison with interrill erosion during high intensity rainfall events (>25 mm/h during one interval of ten minutes). On the contrary, interrill erosion becomes more important during low intensity rainfall events (<20 mm/h during at one interval of ten minutes). At least a 9 mm amount of precipitation with a minimum intensity of 3.6 mm/h is necessary to provoke erosion on this test site. Based on the measurement results regression empirical equations were developed to quantify surface runoff and sediment output. While, surface runoff correlates well with the amount of precipitation (r² = 0,9), sediment output shows little correlation to the amount and intensity of the precipitation (r² = 0,7). In summary, the thesis described effects of water repellent soil conditions on surface runoff and erosion on different scales. The effects on the smaller scales especially are of high interest to hydrological processes.