Description
his more advanced soil science course aims to understand the holistic and the interdependent interactions that existing between soil landscapes, pedogenesis, and hydrologic processes. The course emphasizes on the relationships among distinct soil pedogenic features (such as soil color, texture, horizontation, and heterogeneity), geomorphism of landscapes, and surficial sediments using the concept of soil catena. The course also discuss the different flow pathways (i.e. overland flow, subsurface lateral flow, groundwater flow, and vadose zone flows) exit in a typical soil catena of an arid climate and how these pathways are determined by soil characteristics. On the other hand, soils can be used as an indicator or signature of hillslope and catchment hydrological behavior. The dictation of other environmental factors (such as climate and organisms) and anthropogenic variables relevant to land use and management on the landscape water flux is also discussed. The course is divided into three modules:(i) This first part introduces hydropedology as synergistic integration of pedology with hydrology towards a holistic study of soil-water interactions and landscape-soil-hydrology relationships. This module is organized around a series of process connections and interactions that will give a basic knowledge on the interface between hydrosphere and pedosphere. The module emphasizes flow and transport processes in soils as they occur across the landscape (hillslope to catchment zone). It covers topics such as geomorphic descriptions of soils landscapes, factors and processes involved in the genesis and distribution of pedogenic features (e.g. such as redoxmorphic features, presence of calcareous precipitates, and salic materials, etc.) along soil catenas of arid lands. Pedogenic features as indicators in soils in relation to hydrology and landscape position are also covered.
(ii) Understanding the interaction between hydrology and pedology is very important. Hydrologists may make unrealistic assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy about soils in their “sand-tank” models, and studies that clearly do not reflect real-world conditions. This part of the course focus in general on how to predict preferential flow pathways and their dynamics at different scales, their interfaces with the soil matrix, and their significance in different types of soils and landscapes.