The hydrologic implications of oldfield succession: Depression - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The hydrologic implications of oldfield succession: Depression storage and leaf litter

Paul Richards1, Brenda Lin2 & Mark Norris3

• 1Dept. of Earth Sciences, The College at Brockport SUNY

2The Earth Institute, Columbia University

• 3Dept. of Environmental Science & Biology, The College at Brockport SUNY

Acknowledgements

• New York State Water Resources Institute
• SUNY Brockport Scholarly Incentive Grant Program
• Derek Corbett, Tim Daniluk, Ryan Grimm, David Cannon, & Douglas Dunn
• Property owners & managers

Depression storage

Important factor governing water flow in the landscape including:

Erosion potential Infiltration Overland runoff

Also incorporated as a parameter in several popular hydrologic models: SWMM, WEPP.

Depression storage

Abundant field data for crop fields, but very little data for “natural” land uses Theoretical investigations of relationships with:

Roughness Tortuosity Slope

Depression storage

Ideal storage Effective storage

Vegetation & depression storage

During oldfield succession, how does vegetation influence microrelief development? Hypotheses:

Microrelief,

depression storage, & plant litter increase

• ver succession

Land use

management reduces microrelief & depression storage

Study sites

13 sites representing:

• urban grassland
• Successional oldfield
• Successional shrubland
• Mature woodland

and

• Immature pine forest
• Swamp wetland
• Forested wetland

3 locations had multiple sites with uniform soils and slopes

Study sites

Methods: Roughness clinometer

Slope angle

Used to determine:

• Slope
• Ideal depression storage
• Effective depression storage
• Tortuosity
• Surface roughness

Methods: Roughness clinometer

Rough4.exe Available at VORTEX.ESC.BROCKPORT.EDU\~PRICHARD

Methods: Plant cover

Methods: Plant litter

Methods: Plant litter

Vegetation survey

0.0 1 .0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 G

• 5

G

• 9

G

• 1

H-1 2 H-4 H-2 H-8 S-1 3 S-6 F-1 1 F-3 F-7 W

• 1

W

• 1

4

Site ID

Granoids Forbes Shrubs Trees Bareground Moss

Tree Abundance

• 8
• 7
• 6
• 5
• 4
• 3
• 2
• 1

G-5 G-9 G-1 H-1 2 H-4 H-2 H-8 S-1 3 S-6 F-1 1 F-3 F-7 W

• 1

W

• 1

4

log (Trees/area) log (Basal area/area)

Rush urban Residential grassland Northham urban Park grassland Campus Urban grassland Tower Succ.

• ldfield

Northham Succ.

• ldfield

Honeoye Falls succ.

• ldfield

Rush Mowed Succ.

• ldfieldTower

Succ. shrubland Powerline Succ. shrubland Tower Forest Northham Forest Rush Immature Pineforest Swamp Rd Emergant wetland Verinesi Forested wetland No trees No trees

Plant cover

RESULTS

SUCCESSION

Results

Swamp-ideal Forest wetland ideal NH forest ideal tower forest ideal HF herb ideal Tower herb ideal NH herb ideal Rush Mowed Herb Campus grass ideal NH grass ideal Rush Grass ideal

60 50 40 30 20 10

Ideal depression storage (mm)

Ideal depression storage for all sites

Oldfield succession

Results

Results

Rush Pine Forest e Rush mowed weeds e 6 5 4 3 2 1

mm

Effective Depression Storage (mm)

81% increase in effective storage area after 33 years

Results

N H meadow N H mowed grass 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 mm

Ideal Depression Storage

Tower W

• ods

Tower shrubland Tower meadow 100 80 60 40 20

mm

Ideal Depression Storage

Results

60 40 20

• 20
• 40

99.9 99 95 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 5 1 0.1

Effective depression storage (mm) Percent

All Urban Grass eff All herb eff All forest eff Variable

Normal - 95% CI

Effective depression storage for grassland, successional oldfield and forest

Effective depression storage-slope relationships

FULL LENGTH MANUSCRIPT AVAILABLE !!!! contact prichard@brockport.edu

Conclusions

Effective and Ideal Depression storage does increase along

the oldfield succession continuimn

Plant litter increases with succession but contributes little to

depression storage.

Ideal depression storage values are 5.8, 11.1, 11.4, 14.3 and 22.6

for urban turf, suc. oldfield, suc. shrubland, forest and forested wetland respectively

Mowing appears to retard the natural development of

microtopography that occurs during vegetation growth