The topography of first-order catchments in a region of western Amazonia was found to exhibit distinctive, recurrent features: a steep, straight lower side slope, a flat or nearly flat terrace at an intermediate elevation between valley floor and interfluve, and an upper side slope connecting interfluve and intermediate terrace. A detailed survey of soil-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K sat)-depth relationships, involving 740 undisturbed soil cores, was conducted in a 0.75-ha first-order catchment. The sampling approach was stratified with respect to the above slope units. Exploratory data analysis suggested fourth-root transformation of batches from the 0–0.1 m depth interval, log transformation of batches from the subsequent 0.1 m depth increments, and the use of robust estimators of location and scale. The K sat of the steep lower side slope decreased from 46 to 0.1 mm/h over the overall sampling depth of 0.4 m. The corresponding decrease was from 46 to 0.1 mm/h on the intermediate terrace, from 335 to 0.01 mm/h on the upper side slope, and from 550 to 0.015 mm/h on the interfluve. A depthwise comparison of these slope units led to the formulation of several hypotheses concerning the link between K sat and topography.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:Potsdam/oai:kobv.de-opus-ubp:1697 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Elsenbeer, Helmut, Cassel, Keith, Castro, Jorge |
| Publisher | Universität Potsdam, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät. Institut für Geoökologie, Extern. Extern |
| Source Sets | Potsdam University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Postprint |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Water Resources Research. - 28 (1992), 12, p. 3201 - 3214. - ISSN 0043-1397 |
| Rights | http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/doku/urheberrecht.php |
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