Soil hydraulic conductivities of latosols under pasture, forest and teak in Rondonia, Brazil

✍ Scribed by Helmut Elsenbeer; Bradley E. Newton; Thomas Dunne; Jorge M. de Moraes

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 207 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6087
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1085(19990630)13:9<1417::aid-hyp816>3.0.co;2-6

✦ Synopsis

We investigated the changes of saturated hydraulic conductivity, K sat , with depth of latosols developed on Precambrian basement rocks under primary rainforest, pasture and teak. In all cases, K sat decreased with depth, with most of the decrease occurring between the surface and a depth of 30 cm. In conjunction with prevailing rainfall intensities and frequencies, this anisotropy supports a pronounced lateral component of hillslope ¯ow paths, and also of overland ¯ow under pasture. Our results are at variance with data from other latosols where K sat tends to increase with depth, and hence suggest that considerable restraint is needed in generalization and extrapolation until results from a co-ordinated eort at hydrology-oriented data collection become available.