Browsing by Subject "EROSION"
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Item Open Access Distinct contributions of eroding and depositional profiles to land-atmosphere CO 2 exchange in two contrasting forests(Frontiers in Earth Science, 2019-02-26) Billings, SA; Richter, DDB; Ziegler, SE; Prestegaard, K; Wade, AM© 2019 Billings, Richter, Ziegler, Prestegaard and Wade. Lateral movements of soil organic C (SOC) influence Earth's C budgets by transporting organic C across landscapes and by modifying soil-profile fluxes of CO 2 . We extended a previously presented model (Soil Organic C Erosion Replacement and Oxidation, SOrCERO) and present SOrCERODe, a model with which we can project how erosion and subsequent deposition of eroded material can modify biosphere-atmosphere CO 2 fluxes in watersheds. The model permits the user to quantify the degree to which eroding and depositional profiles experience a change in SOC oxidation and production as formerly deep horizons become increasingly shallow, and as depositional profiles are buried. To investigate the relative importance of erosion rate, evolving SOC depth distributions, and mineralization reactivity on modeled soil C fluxes, we examine two forests exhibiting distinct depth distributions of SOC content and reactivity, hydrologic regimes and land use. Model projections suggest that, at decadal to centennial timescales: (1) the quantity of SOC moving across a landscape depends on erosion rate and the degree to which SOC production and oxidation at the eroding profile are modified as deeper horizons become shallower, and determines the degree to which depositional profile SOC fluxes are modified; (2) erosional setting C sink strength increases with erosion rate, with some sink effects reaching more than 40% of original profile SOC content after 100 y of a relatively high erosion rate (i.e., 1 mm y −1 ); (3) even large amounts of deposited SOC may not promote a large depositional profile C sink even with large gains in autochthonous SOC post-deposition if oxidation of buried SOC is not limited; and (4) when modeled depositional settings receive a disproportionately large amount of SOC, simulations of strong C sink scenarios mimic observations of modest preservation of buried SOC and large SOC gains in surficial horizons, suggesting that C sink scenarios have merit in these forests. Our analyses illuminate the importance of cross-landscape linkages between upland and depositional environments for watershed-scale biosphere-atmosphere C fluxes, and emphasize the need for accurate representations and observations of time-varying depth distributions of SOC reactivity across evolving watersheds if we seek accurate projections of ecosystem C balances.Item Open Access Game Changer in Soil Science. The Anthropocene in soil science and pedology.(Journal of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, 2020-02-01) Richter, DD© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim The venerable science of pedology, initiated in the 19th century as the study of the natural factors of soil formation, is adapting to the demands of the Anthropocene, the geologic time during which planet Earth and its soils are transitioning from natural to human-natural systems. With vast areas of soils intensively managed, the future of pedology lies with a renewed science that can be called anthropedology that builds on the pedology of the past but proceeds from “human as outsider” to “human as insider.” In other words, the human in pedology must shift from being a soil-disturbing to soil-forming agent. Pedology is well prepared to respond to the challenges of the Anthropocene, given the decades of research on human-soil relations throughout human history and throughout the period of the Great Acceleration (Steffen et al., [76]). However, quantitative understanding of soil responses to the diversity of human forcings remains elementary and needs remedy.Item Open Access Hydro-geomorphic perturbations on the soil-atmosphere CO2exchange: How (un)certain are our balances?(Water Resources Research, 2017-02) Dialynas, Yannis G; Bras, Rafael L; deB. Richter, DanielItem Open Access Soil production and the soil geomorphology legacy of Grove Karl Gilbert(Soil Science Society of America Journal, 2020-01-01) Richter, DD; Eppes, MC; Austin, JC; Bacon, AR; Billings, SA; Brecheisen, Z; Ferguson, TA; Markewitz, D; Pachon, J; Schroeder, PA; Wade, AM© 2019 The Authors. Soil Science Society of America published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Soil Science Society of America Geomorphologists are quantifying the rates of an important component of bedrock's weathering in research that needs wide discussion among soil scientists. By using cosmogenic nuclides, geomorphologists estimate landscapes’ physical lowering, which, in a steady landscape, equates to upward transfers of weathered rock into slowly moving hillslope-soil creep. Since the 1990s, these processes have been called “soil production” or “mobile regolith production”. In this paper, we assert the importance of a fully integrated pedological and geomorphological approach not only to soil creep but to soil, regolith, and landscape evolution; we clarify terms to facilitate soil geomorphology collaboration; and we seek a greater understanding of our sciences’ history. We show how the legacy of Grove Karl Gilbert extend across soil geomorphology. We interpret three contrasting soils and regoliths in the USA's Southern Piedmont in the context of a Gilbert-inspired model of weathering and transport, a model of regolith evolution and of nonsteady systems that liberate particles and solutes from bedrock and transport them across the landscape. This exercise leads us to conclude that the Southern Piedmont is a region with soils and regoliths derived directly from weathering bedrock below (a regional paradigm for more than a century) but that the Piedmont also has significant areas in which regoliths are at least partly formed from paleo-colluvia that may be massive in volume and overlie organic-enriched layers, peat, and paleo-saprolite. An explicitly integrated study of soil geomorphology can accelerate our understanding of soil, regoliths, and landscape evolution in all physiographic regions.