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Title: Hydropedology: Synergistic integration of pedology and hydrology

Author
item LIN, HENRY - PENN STATE UNIV., PA
item BOUMA, JOHAN - WAGENINGEN U.,NETHERLANDS
item Pachepsky, Yakov
item WESTERN, ANDREW - U. OF MELBOURNE,AUSTRALIA
item THOMPSON, JAMES - WEST VA U., WEST VIRGINIA
item Van Genuchten, Martinus
item VOGEL HANS-JORG - CNTR ENVRMNTL RES,GERMANY
item LILLY, ALLAN - MCCAULEY INST., U., K.

Submitted to: Water Resources Research
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/9/2006
Publication Date: 5/9/2006
Citation: Lin, H., Bouma, J., Pachepsky, Y.A., Western, A., Thompson, J., Van Genuchten, M.T., Vogel Hans-Jorg, Lilly, A. 2006. Hydropedology: Synergistic integration of pedology and hydrology. Water Resources Research. [WO5301.doc:10.1029/2005WR004085.2006] (42):1-13.

Interpretive Summary: This paper stresses the need for a more interdisciplinary systems approach for addressing a wide array of environmental, ecological, agricultural, geological, and natural resource issues of societal importance. The past few decades has seen much interest in adopting a landscape perspective when examining cross-disciplinary issues such as nonpoint source pollution, watershed management, integrated agricultural systems, precision farming, sustainable land use, and ecosystem restoration and preservation. With the landscape perspective comes the need to address inherent variability in the field and to transfer knowledge and data across scales from the laboratory or small plot to the larger field and watershed scales. Pedology and hydrology are scientific disciplines inherently associated with the landscape perspective. For example, pedology is a branch of soil science that integrates and quantifies the formation, distribution, morphology, and classification of soils as natural or anthropogenically modified landscapes, while hydrology deals with the occurrence, distribution, circulation, and properties of water on and beneath the Earth’s surface. This paper advocates increased focus on this combined area of research, called hydropedology. The paper lists several knowledge gaps that can be addressed by more effective integration of pedology and hydrology, and proposes specific strategies for achieving the stated vision. The authors believe that by working together, hydrologists and pedologists, along with scientists from related disciplines (such as soil physicists, hydrogeologists, hydrogeophysicists, ecohydrologists, biogeochemists, and atmospheric scientists), can better guide data acquisition, knowledge integration, and model prediction for applicaiton to relevant field- and watershed scale problems.

Technical Abstract: This paper presents a vision that advocates hydropedology as an advantageous integration of pedology and hydrology for studying the intimate relationships between soil, landscape, and hydrology. Landscape water flux is suggested as a unifying precept for hydropedology, through which pedologic and hydrologic expertise can be better integrated. Landscape water flux here encompasses the source, storage, flux, pathway, residence time, availability, and spatiotemporal distribution of water in the root and deep vadose zones within the landscape. After illustrating multiple knowledge gaps that can be addressed by the synergistic integration of pedology and hydrology, we suggest five scientific hypotheses that are critical to advancing hydropedology and enhancing the prediction of landscape water flux. We then present interlinked strategies for achieving the stated vision. It is our hope that by working together, hydrologists and pedologists, along with scientists in related disciplines, can better guide data acquisition, knowledge integration, and model-based prediction so as to advance the hydrologic sciences in the next decade and beyond.