A hydropedology-precision agriculture experiment aiming for advancing the understanding of surface and subsurface water movements and their links to crop production on agricultural landscapes is being conducted at the Kepler farm in central Pennsylvania. We will discuss the experimental design, followed by characterizing surface and subsurface soil moisture spatial and temporal patterns both in the non-cropping and cropping seasons. We will then (i) link the spatial patterns to soil types, surface topography, bedrock topography, crop yield, and their interactions at the pedon, hillslope, and landscape scales, (ii) link the temporal patterns to rainfall intensity, soil types, surface topography, bedrock topography, water table depth, and crop type at daily or weekly, monthly, and seasonal scales, and (iii) identify dominant subsurface flow pathways and patterns based on soil moisture spatial-temporal dynamics and crop yield responses. Finally, we will demonstrate a conceptual model describing the surface and subsurface water flow paths and patterns in this agricultural landscape.
See more of Soil Water at the Field Scale
See more of S01 Soil Physics
See more of The ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings (November 6-10, 2005)