Evaluation of soil conservation technologies from the perspective of selected physical soil properties and infiltration capacity of the soil

Abstract

This paper evaluates different technologies of soil cultivation (conventional and minimization) in terms of physical properties and water regime of soils, where infiltration of surface water is a major component of subsurface water. Soil physical properties (the current humidity, reduced bulk density, porosity, water retention capacity of soil, pore distribution and soil aeration) is determined from soil samples taken from the organic horizon according to standard methodology. To observe the infiltration characteristics of surface layers of topsoil, the drench method (double ring infiltrometers) was used. For the evaluation of field measurements of infiltration, empirical and physically derived equations by Kostiakov and Philip and the three-parameter Philip-type equation were used. The Philip three-parameter equation provides physical based parameters near the theoretical values, a good estimation of saturated hydraulic conductivity Ks and sorptivity C1. The parameter S of Philip’s equation describes the real value of the sorptivity of the soil. Experimental research work on the experimental plots H. Meziříčko proceeded in the years 2005–2008.

Keywords

• infiltration capacity
• minimization tillage
• conventional tillage
• soil erosion
• hydraulic conductivity