Hydrology of a Semiarid Loess‐Paleosol Sequence, and Implications for Buried Soil Connection to the Modern Climate, Plant‐Available Moisture, and Loess Tableland Persistence

Soil hydrology provides important background for understanding the fate of organic carbon (OC) buried by geomorphic processes as well influence runoff, infiltration, and plant root uptake on long-term erosion landscape evolution. We modeled a 4.5-m loess-paleosol sequence an eroding tableland in U.S. central Great Plains using Hydrus 1D, numerical unsaturated flow model, parameterized with high resolution measurements soil water retention hydraulic conductivity curves, which were distinct loess paleosols. hypothesized that (a) connection paleosols to modern climate depends their burial depth, (b) zone would have broader pore-size distributions than unweathered loess, (c) this distribution increased made vegetation more resilient drought, increasing stability tablelands despite erodibility local relief. Four years varying total annual precipitation simulated observed profile two hypothetical profiles, one without another shallow, strongly developed paleosol. In these simulations, moisture shallow responds quickly while deeply paleosol is largely disconnected from climate, contributing OC preservation. Contrary our expectation, presence did not increase relative either wet or dry years. The coarse we studied may optimal uptake, providing alternative hypothesis why highly erodible persist.