Relationship between hydraulic properties and plant coverage of the closed-landfill soils in Piacenza (Po Valley, Italy)

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper the results of a study of soil hydraulic properties and plant coverage of a landfill located in Piacenza (Po Valley, Italy) are presented, together with the attempt to relate the hydraulic properties in relation with plant coverage. The measured soil water retention curve was first compared with the output of pedotransfer functions taken from the literature and then compared with the output of the same pedotransfer functions applied to a reference soil. The landfill plant coverage was also studied. The relationship between soil hydraulic properties and plant coverage showed that the landfill soils have a low water content available for plants. The soils' low water content, together with a lack of depth and a compacted structure, justifies the presence of a nitrophilous, disturbed-soil vegetation type, dominated by ephemeral annual species (therophytes).

Ecosystem responses to land abandonment in Western Mediterranean Mountains

“…It is well known that management determines the infiltration rates in agricultural soils (Wang et al, 2015;Shi et al, 2015;Hazbavi and Sadeghi, 2016) and that as we found at the Valencia study site, there was a clear influence of vegetation on soil properties due to the improvement of soil quality by litter and root additions (de Boever et al, 2014) and an impact on runoff generation and hydraulics (Zhao et al, 2015). This positive impact of vegetation can be seen in agricultural soils, but also in restored mine soils and landfills (Cassinari et al, 2015;Thomas et al, 2015). In forest soils, the impact of vegetation type and biomass is also definitive to understanding the infiltration capacity of soils.…”

The impact of organic amendments on soil hydrology, structure and microbial respiration in semiarid lands

“…Soil hydraulic conductivity is mainly affected by its structural (Zhou et al, 2008;Moncada et al, 2014;Schwen et al, 2014) and chemical characteristics (Ahmad et al, 2015;Shi et al, 2015). Reduced aggregate stability and lowered hydraulic conductivity can be responsible for severe soil erosion and other forms of land degradation (Mainuri and Owino, 2013;Mahmoodabadi and Cerdà, 2013;Arjmand Sajjadi and Mahmoodabadi, 2015a,b) and is clearly dependent on vegetation cover (Cassinari et al, 2015;De Boever et al, 2014;Ola et al, 2015). In most agricultural areas, soil organic carbon (SOC) enhances hydraulic conductivity by improving aggregate stability and porosity (Le Bissonnais et al, 2007;Mahmoodabadi and Ahmadbeygi, 2013;Eibisch et al, 2015).…”

Comparing Beerkan infiltration tests with rainfall simulation experiments for hydraulic characterization of a sandy‐loam soil

“…Determining soil hydraulic properties is necessary for interpreting and simulating many hydrological processes having environmental and economic importance (Turner et al, ), such as rainfall partition into infiltration and runoff (Cassinari, Manfredi, Giupponi, Trevisan, & Piccini, ; Iovino, Castellini, Bagarello, & Giordano, ; Rockström, Jansson, & Barron, ). The saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, K s , exerts a dominating influence on the partitioning of rainfall in vertical and lateral flow paths.…”