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Heathland vegetation, soil moisture and dynamic contributing area
Author(s) -
Gurnell Angela M.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
earth surface processes and landforms
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.294
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1096-9837
pISSN - 0197-9337
DOI - 10.1002/esp.3290060605
Subject(s) - vegetation (pathology) , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , soil science , context (archaeology) , water content , surface runoff , drainage basin , moisture , geology , ecology , geotechnical engineering , geography , medicine , paleontology , cartography , pathology , meteorology , biology
Gurnell (1978) demonstrated the potential of the composition of wet heathland vegetation as an indicator of hydrological processes in a small heathland catchment. The present paper investigates this potential and demonstrates that on a hillslope in the study catchment simple prediction equations for pressure head based entirely on position on the slope can be substantially improved by the inclusion of vegetation related variables. It is suggested that in this context the vegetation composition is largely reflecting soil permeability and that the remaining scatter around the prediction equations results from other factors controlling micro‐scale variations in the vegetation pattern.