Evolution of Soil, Ecosystem, and Critical Zone Research at the USDA FS Calhoun Experimental Forest

Richter, Daniel deB.; Bacon, Allan R.; Billings, S. A.; Binkley, Dan; Buford, Marilyn A.; Callaham, Mac A.; Curry, Amy; Fimmen, Ryan L.; Grandy, A. Stuart; Heine, Paul R.; Hofmockel, Michael; Jackson, Jason A.; LeMaster, Elizabeth; Li, Jianwei; Markewitz, Daniel; Mobley, Megan L.; Morrison, Mary W.; Waldrop, Thomas A.; Wells, Carol G.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-1818-4_18

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…The Calhoun CZO in South Carolina (Figure ) is an area where decades of intensive agricultural land use have resulted in a distinctive topography with a wide range of gullies, interfluves, hillslopes and significantly eroded areas (Richter et al. ; Brecheisen and Richter, ; Bastola et al. ; Coughlan et al.…”

Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An estimated 17 cm of soil was eroded between 1750 and 1950 from the entire Piedmont from Virginia to Alabama (Trimble, ; Richter et al. ), resulting in a landscape that, according to one observer (Montgomery, ), was ‘a miserable panorama of unpainted shacks, rain‐gullied fields, straggling fences, and rattle‐trap Fords, dirt, poverty, disease, drudgery, and monotony that stretches for a thousand miles across the cotton belt’.…”

Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The severe soil erosion greatly increased surface and subsurface runoff, causing enormous sedimentation and legacy sediment problems, jeopardizing soil‐water storage, and accentuating plant‐water stress and plant disease (Richter et al. , , and references therein). The massive land degradation and consequent soil fertility loss triggered land abandoned in the early 1900s.…”

Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of the most remarkable cases include the massive land degradation caused by cotton plantations in the US Southern Piedmont (Trimble, ; Richter et al. ; see Figure ), the accelerated soil erosion in the Chinese Loess Plateau due to prolonged intensive human activity (Fu, ; Shi and Shao, ; Zhao et al. ), as well as the severe soil erosion observed in many Mediterranean regions (Martínez‐Casasnovas and Sánchez‐Bosch, ; Zalidis et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of accelerated soil erosion on hillslope morphology

Bonetti

Richter

Porporato

2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Intensive agricultural land use can have detrimental effects on landscape properties, greatly accelerating soil erosion, with consequent fertility loss and reduced agricultural potential. To quantify the effects of such erosional processes on hillslope morphology and gain insight into the underlying dynamics, we use a twofold approach. First, a statistical analysis of topographical features is conducted, with a focus on slope and gradient distributions. The accelerated soil erosion is shown to be fingerprinted in the distribution tails, which provide a clear statistical signature of this human‐induced land modification. Theoretical solutions are then derived for the hillslope morphology and the associated creep and runoff erosion fluxes, allowing us to distinguish between the main erosional mechanisms operating in disturbed and undisturbed areas. We focus our application on the landscape at the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory in the US Southern Piedmont, where severe soil erosion followed intensive cotton cultivation, resulting in highly eroded and gullied hillslopes. The observed differences in hillslope morphologies in disturbed and undisturbed areas are shown to be related to the disruption of the natural balance between soil creep and runoff erosion. The relaxation time required for the disturbed hillslopes to reach a quasi‐equilibrium condition is also investigated. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study Area: the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The effect of accelerated soil erosion on hillslope morphology

Bonetti

Richter

Porporato

2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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“…2.20). The new Calhoun CZO leverages more than 60 years of USDA Forest Service and Duke University research on land and water degradation and soil change based at the Forest Service's Calhoun Experimental Forest in the Sumter National Forest (Richter et al, 2014;Fig. 2.21).…”

Section: Calhoun Czomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Critical Zone Observatories in Critical Zone Science

White¹,

Brantley²,

Banwart³

et al. 2015

Developments in Earth Surface Processes

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Topographic variability and the influence of soil erosion on the carbon cycle

Dialynas

Bastola

Bras

et al. 2016

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Soil erosion, particularly that caused by agriculture, is closely linked to the global carbon (C) cycle. There is a wide range of contrasting global estimates of how erosion alters soil-atmosphere C exchange. This can be partly attributed to limited understanding of how geomorphology, topography, and management practices affect erosion and oxidation of soil organic C (SOC). This work presents a physically based approach that stresses the heterogeneity at fine spatial scales of SOC erosion, SOC burial, and associated soil-atmosphere C fluxes. The Holcombe's Branch watershed, part of the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory in South Carolina, USA, is the case study used. The site has experienced some of the most serious agricultural soil erosion in North America. We use SOC content measurements from contrasting soil profiles and estimates of SOC oxidation rates at multiple soil depths. The methodology was implemented in the tRIBS-ECO (Triangulated Irregular Network-based Real-time Integrated Basin Simulator-Erosion and Carbon Oxidation), a spatially and depth-explicit model of SOC dynamics built within an existing coupled physically based hydro-geomorphic model. According to observations from multiple soil profiles, about 32% of the original SOC content has been eroded in the study area. The results indicate that C erosion and its replacement exhibit significant topographic variation at relatively small scales (tens of meters). The episodic representation of SOC erosion reproduces the history of SOC erosion better than models that use an assumption of constant erosion in space and time. The net atmospheric C exchange at the study site is estimated to range from a maximum source of 14.5 g m À2 yr À1 to a maximum sink of À18.2 g m À2 yr À1 . The small-scale complexity of C erosion and burial driven by topography exerts a strong control on the landscape's capacity to serve as a C source or a sink.

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Evolution of Soil, Ecosystem, and Critical Zone Research at the USDA FS Calhoun Experimental Forest

Cited by 7 publications

References 61 publications

The effect of accelerated soil erosion on hillslope morphology

The effect of accelerated soil erosion on hillslope morphology

The Role of Critical Zone Observatories in Critical Zone Science

Topographic variability and the influence of soil erosion on the carbon cycle

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