<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Stony soils are composed of fractions (rock fragments and fine soil) with different hydrophysical characteristics. Although they are abundant in many catchments, their properties are still not well understood. This article presents basic characteristics (texture, stoniness, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and soil water retention) of stony soils from a mountain catchment located in the highest part of the Carpathian Mountains and summarizes results of water flow modeling through a hypothetical stony soil profile. Numerical simulations indicate the highest vertical outflow from the bottom of the profile in soils without rock fragments under ponding infiltration condition. Simulation of a more realistic case in a mountain catchment, i.e. infiltration of intensive rainfall, shows that when rainfall intensity is lower than the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the stony soil, the highest outflow is predicted in a soil with the highest stoniness and high initial water content of soil matrix. Relatively low available retention capacity in a stony soil profile and consequently higher unsaturated hydraulic conductivity leads to faster movement of the infiltration front during rainfall.</p></abstract>

Stony soils are composed of fractions (rock fragments and fine soil) with different hydrophysical characteristics. Although they are abundant in many catchments, their properties are still not well understood. This article presents basic characteristics (texture, stoniness, saturated hydraulic conductivity, and soil water retention) of stony soils from a mountain catchment located in the highest part of the Carpathian Mountains and summarizes results of water flow modeling through a hypothetical stony soil profile. Numerical simulations indicate the highest vertical outflow from the bottom of the profile in soils without rock fragments under ponding infiltration condition. Simulation of a more realistic case in a mountain catchment, i.e. infiltration of intensive rainfall, shows that when rainfall intensity is lower than the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the stony soil, the highest outflow is predicted in a soil with the highest stoniness and high initial water content of soil matrix. Relatively low available retention capacity in a stony soil profile and consequently higher unsaturated hydraulic conductivity leads to faster movement of the infiltration front during rainfall.

On the role of rock fragments and initial soil water content in the potential subsurface runoff formation

Institute of Hydrology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Račianska 75, 83102 Bratislava, Slovakia

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Stony soils are composed of fractions (rock fragments and fine soil) with different hydrophysical characteristics. Although they are abundant in many...

On the role of rock fragments and initial soil water content in the potential subsurface runoff formation

Published Online: Jan 28, 2015

Page range: 71 - 81

Received: Oct 21, 2013

Accepted: Sep 04, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/johh-2015-0002

© 2015

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.