Predicting soil thickness on soil mantled hillslopes.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30127337.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-05743-y and PMC identifier 6102209.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Soil thickness is a fundamental variable in many earth science disciplines due to its critical role in many hydrological and ecological processes, but it is difficult to predict. Here we show a strong linear relationship (r<sup>2</sup> = 0.87, RMSE = 0.19 m) between soil thickness and hillslope curvature across both convergent and divergent parts of the landscape at a field site in Idaho. We find similar linear relationships across diverse landscapes (n = 6) with the slopes of these relationships varying as a function of the standard deviation in catchment curvatures. This soil thickness-curvature approach is significantly more efficient and just as accurate as kriging-based methods, but requires only high-resolution elevation data and as few as one soil profile. Efficiently attained, spatially continuous soil thickness datasets enable improved models for soil carbon, hydrology, weathering, and landscape evolution.