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Re‐sampling for Soil‐caesium‐137 to Assess Soil Losses after a 19‐year Interval in a Hunter Valley Vineyard, New South Wales, Australia
Author(s) -
LOUGHRAN ROBERT J.,
BALOG RICHARD M.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
geographical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.695
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-5871
pISSN - 1745-5863
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-5871.2006.00361.x
Subject(s) - vineyard , erosion , soil water , environmental science , tonne , hydrology (agriculture) , sampling interval , forestry , geography , sampling (signal processing) , geology , soil science , archaeology , mathematics , geomorphology , statistics , geotechnical engineering , filter (signal processing) , computer science , computer vision
Soils in a lower Hunter valley vineyard, New South Wales, Australia, were sampled and analysed for caesium‐137, an indicator of soil erosion status, in 1984–1985 and 2004. From the time of the vineyard's first establishment in 1971 to 1985, estimated soil losses were 250 tonnes (equivalent to 64.2 t ha −1 yr −1 ). Re‐sampling in 2004 showed that soil losses were 48 tonnes in the 19 years since 1985, equivalent to 9.7 t ha −1 yr −1 . The decline in erosion rates may be explained by a change in land and soil management from intensive cultivation to one of no cultivation (sod culture) in 1998, and a lower annual rainfall and fewer rain‐days per year in the period from 1986 to 2004.