Wednesday, November 7, 2007
305-13

Identifying the Subsurface Convergent Flow Pathway in An Agronomy Farm.

Qing Zhu1, Hangsheng Lin2, and Xiaobo Zhou1. (1) Pennsylvania State Univ., The Pennsylvania State University, 116 ASI Building, State College, PA 16802, (2) Dept of Crop & Soil Sciences, Pennsylvania State Univ., Penn State Univ., 116 ASI Bldg, University Park, PA 16802

Subsurface soil water dynamics can influence crop growth and the fate of surface-applied fertilizers and pesticides. In this study, potential subsurface convergent flow pathways were investigated at the soil-bedrock interface, clay-silt interface and A horizon-B horizon interface in an agronomy farm. Maps of depth to bedrock, depth to clay layer, and A horizon thickness were made from the field observations using optimal interpolation methods. Original DEM of this farm and these three maps were combined to generate the DEMs for soil-bedrock interface, clay-silt interface and A horizon-B horizon interface. Hydrologic tools in ArcGIS were applied to identify the theoretical convergent flow pathways for these three interfaces. Field soil moisture content observations at 145 sites collected at different days and crop yield at different years were then used to verify the theoretical flow pathways at these three interfaces.