Unraveling soil moisture responses to storms and relationships to runoff in a headwater catchment

Abstract:

Soil moisture exhibits complex spatiotemporal patterns, both laterally across landscapes and vertically within soil profiles. These patterns of soil moisture can have strong influences on runoff generation, especially in catchments having large capacities for soil water storage and transmission. The body of literature on runoff generation is expansive, yet we still have a great deal to learn about how the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of soil moisture influences catchment-scale hydrologic responses to storm events. With this in mind, we investigated soil moisture responses to storm events across several landscape positions in a steep, forested headwater catchment. We measured volumetric water content (VWC) continuously for two years at 45 points representing different combinations of landscape position and soil depth within a 13 ha catchment at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. We also monitored shallow groundwater levels at six locations within the catchment along with runoff at the catchment outlet. To investigate soil moisture response during events, we assessed absolute change in magnitude of VWC (Δs) and lag time (Δt) between peak VWC and peak precipitation for 39 events during the two-year study period. Our results showed that storm depth and antecedent moisture explained some of the spatiotemporal patterns of Δs; however, the explanatory power varied with the hillslope and season. Furthermore, we did not detect topographic control of Δs or Δt at most of the locations monitored. By evaluating the sequence of Δt, groundwater response, and runoff response for each storm, we characterized the hydrologic behavior of the study hillslopes for the 39 storm events.The characterization of hydrologic behavior reveals interrelationships between soil moisture and shallow groundwater, and their combined influence on runoff at the catchment outlet. This work provides new insights on links between the spatiotemporal variability of soil moisture and runoff response in headwater catchments.