The soil mantle in Namaqualand is immature in terms of weathering. Despite or even because of this, the diversity and spatial variability of soil physical and chemical properties is exceptionally high and could be fundamental in governing biodiversity and ecosystem function. In arid landscapes, the way the soil sheds, admits, stores, diverts and transmits water is crucially important. Namaquala...

in order to investigate the effects of super absorbent material on water saving and increasing rain water productivity under micro catchments water harvesting systems, a field experiment was conducted in east azarbaijan. the treatments included two mcwh patterns (small basins and semi-circular bunds), three catchments sizes, three runoff area treatments (natural, cleared and smoothed, wetting a...

The infiltration of urban runoff always implies an entrance of pollutants into the soil and ground water. Due to legal regulations in many communes there is no longer any permission needed for stormwater infiltration, if administrative regulations and the requirements of standards are observed. The results of a research project carried out under the heading "Development of an assessment procedu...

Field and laboratory studies have indicated that rock fragments in the topsoil may have a large impact on soil properties, soil quality, hydraulic, hydrological and erosion processes. In most studies, the investigated rock fragments still remain visible at the soil surface and only properties of these visible rock fragments are used for predicting runoff and soil loss. However, there are indica...

In cold climate regions winter conditions significantly influence the performance of stormwater infiltration devices. Frozen soil and water storage by snow changes their operation. In this paper winter operation of a grassed infiltration swale was investigated using on-site and laboratory measurements. The field investigation of a grassed swale at a parking place in an Alpine region showed that...

It is common for subsurface flow to transition between porous and fractured media. Two examples include vertical infiltration of precipitation through a permeable soil overlying a fractured bedrock, and horizontal ground water flow through a combination of porous and fractured geologic units. A reduction in flow or flow impedance may occur across these interfaces caused by head losses associate...

Some essential features of the terrestrial hydrologic cycle and ecosystem response are singled out by confronting empirical observations of the soil water balance of different ecosystems with the results of a stochastic model of soil moisture dynamics. The simplified framework analytically describes how hydroclimatic variability (especially the frequency and amount of rainfall events) concurs w...

Preferential flow in biological soil structures is of key importance for infiltration and soil water flow at a range of scales. In the present study, we treat soil water flow as a dissipative process in an open non-equilibrium thermodynamic system, to better understand this key process. We define the chemical potential and Helmholtz free energy based on soil physical quantities, parametrize a p...