Hydraulic properties of characteristic horizons depending on relief position and structure in a hummocky glacial soil landscape

The hummocky ground moraine soil landscape forms a spatial continuum of more or less eroded and depositional soils developed from glacial till under intensive agricultural cultivation. Measurements of soil hydraulic properties in the laboratory on soil cores are mostly limited to some characteristic horizons. However, these horizons can vary in thickness or structural and pedological development depending on relief position. This paper compares soil hydraulic properties of the same soil horizons sampled at different relief positions in a single field representing various degrees of soil erosion/deposition. Water retention curves were determined from undisturbed core samples using sand and kaolin beds with hanging water column and pressure chambers, and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity using the double-membrane apparatus. Data were fitted to the van Genuchten–Mualem function (VGM) using the nonlinear curve fitting program RETC. The desorption water retention curves for the soil horizons were different and depended on the soil structural development that could be related with the intensity of erosion history at each landscape position. The greatest differences in hydraulic functions were found for the E, Bt, and C horizons. The fitted soil water retention curves reflected these differences mainly in the values of the VGM curve parameters n and θs. The landscape features that have the strongest differentiating effect are related to erosion and distance towards the water table. The results can help improving pedotransfer approaches for the estimation of spatially distributed hydraulic parameters for modelling the water movement in hummocky soil landscapes as basis for establishing landscape scale water and element balances.