The composition of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in a soil is the product of a variety of soil processes. Changes in the composition of DOM in water discharged from soil should, therefore, give an important insight into modifications in these soil processes. We hypothesise that these processes in soils, under different grassland management regimes, would be affected to different extents by the short-term disturbance of a storm event and that evidence of this could be detected in delta(13)C and delta(15)N signatures in drainage and surface runoff waters. During a storm event we collected discharge waters from 1 ha grassland lysimeters, with or without artificial drainage, which received contrasting fertiliser inputs, and delta(13)C and delta(15)N signatures were determined. Changes in (13)C enrichment during the storm event were clearly identifiable, as were differences between plots for (13)C and (15)N, illustrating that this technique has potential to be a useful tool for identifying and investigating short- and long-term changes in soil organic matter dynamics. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.