Capturing SUbsurface PREferential transport processes in agricultural HILLslope soils: SUPREHILL CZO
- 1University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Svetošimunska Cesta 25, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
- 2University of Zagreb Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, Pierottijeva 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
- 3Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany
- 4Working Group “Hydropedology”, Research Area 1 “Landscape Functioning,” Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Eberswalder Strasse 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany
- 5Institute of Bio- and Geoscience (IBG-3, Agrosphere), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, 52428, Germany
- 6Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation – Soil Science and Soil Ecology, University of Bonn, Bonn, 53115, Germany
- 7Department of Soil Science and Soil Protection, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
- 8Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Thákurova 7, 16629, Prague, Czech Republic
- 9College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, No.3 Taicheng Road, Yangling 712100, PR China
- 10Institute for Soil Physics and Rural Water Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna 1190, Austria
- 11Future Regions Research Centre, Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Engineering Research Group, Federation University, Gippsland, VIC 3841, Australia
Agricultural hillslopes present particular challenges for estimating vadose zone dynamics due to a variety of processes, such as surface runoff, vertical flow, erosion, subsurface preferential flow affected by soil structure and layering, non-linear chemical behaviour, evapotranspiration, etc. To investigate these processes and complexity, the SUPREHILL critical zone observatory (CZO) was started in 2020, at vineyard hillslope site in Croatia. The observatory is extensively equipped for the soil-water regime and agrochemical fluxes monitoring, and includes an extensive sensor network, lysimeters (weighing and passive wick), suction probes, surface and subsurface flow and precipitation collection instruments. The main objective of the SUPREHILL observatory is to quantify subsurface lateral and local scale preferential flow processes. Local-scale nonlinear processes in eroded agricultural hillslope sites have large significance on water and solute behaviour within the critical zone and thus need to be researched in depth using combined methods and various approaches. First results from the sensor and lysimeter network, soil-water regime monitoring, isotope analysis, and agrochemical concentrations in 2021 supported the hypothesis of the observatory, that the subsurface flow plays a relevant part in the hillslope soil-water dynamics. In the wick lysimeter network, although the highest cumulative outflow values were found at the hilltop, the highest individual measurements were found at the footslope. During high-intensity rainfall events, there were differences in weighing lysimeters, possibly related to subsurface lateral flow. Based on the isotope analysis, wick lysimeters exhibit a greater variation of d-excess values than suction probes. Agrochemical fluxes confirmed the sloping effect on their transport in soil and demonstrated the favourability of Cu transport by subsurface flow. Using the comprehensive database presented herein, future analyses of this hypothesis will be carried out in more detail using model-based analyses.
How to cite: Filipović, L., Krevh, V., Defterdarović, J., Kovač, Z., Bogunović, I., Mustać, I., Beck-Broichsitter, S., Gerke, H. H., Groh, J., Kodešová, R., Klement, A., Dusek, J., He, H., Brunetti, G., Baumgartl, T., and Filipović, V.: Capturing SUbsurface PREferential transport processes in agricultural HILLslope soils: SUPREHILL CZO, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 23–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4362, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4362, 2023.
