Edyta Kruk

Spatial Variabilty of Chosen Soil Properties on Mountainous Area on Example of Kasińczanka Stream Basin, Western Carpathians

The phenomenon of erosion on mountain and submontane areas influences directly on high variability of soil properties. In the work there were presented results of analysis of spatial variability of bulk density, total porosity, organic matter content and saturated hydraulic conductivity, on eroded slopes of the Kasińczanka stream basin. Geostatistical analysis was carried out using the kriging method, based on irregular network, consisted of 52 points, situated by means of the GPS. Taking into account the calculated variability coefficient it was stated, that on the investigated area, the most flexible spatially was saturated hydraulic conductivity, while the less flexible turned out total porosity. Using the determined models of semivariance, the maps of spatial variability of chosen parameters were drafted. It was stated that high value of variance influenced on higher smoothing of spatial distribution in interpolation. Results of geostatistical analysis will allow to find locations for new measuring points, what has substantial significance in mountain areas, for precision analysis of soil properties. Based on the obtained results, it can be stated that the kriging method may be useful tool for determination spatial variability analysis of soil properties on an areas of mountain basins.

Concept of soil temperature coefficient for determining spatial distribution of soil temperature, using physiographic parameters of the basin and artificial neural network (ANN)

The paper presents the concept of soil temperature coefficient, as a ratio of soil temperature in the given point on the area of a basin and soil temperature in the basal point located within the watershed. For modelling the distribution of the soil temperature coefficient depending on selected soil and physiographic parameters, artificial neural networks (ANN) were used. ANN were taught based on empirical data, which covered measurements of soil temperature in 126 points, in the layer of soil at the depth of 0–10 cm, within the area of the Mątny stream basin located in the Gorce mountain range of West Carpathians. The area size of the basin amounts to 1.47 km2. Temperature was measured by means of a TDR device. The soil and physiographic parameters included: slopes, flow direction, clay content, height above sea level, exposition, slope shape, placement on the slope, land-use, and hydrologic group. Parameters were generated using DEM of 5m spatial resolution and soil maps, using the ArcGIS program. The MLP 10-8-1 model proved to be the best fitted neural network, with 8 neurons in the hidden layer. The quality parameters were satisfactory. For the learning set, the quality parameter amounted to 0.805; for the testing set, 0.894; and for the validating set, 0.820. Global sensitivity analysis facilitated the assessment of percentage shares, contributing to the soil temperature ratio. Land use (25.0%) and exposition (20.5%) had the highest impact on of the aforementioned ratio, while the placement on the slope and flow direction had the lowest impact.

Estimation of water erosion threat of the Smuga stream basin in the Beskid Wyspowy / Ocena zagrożenia erozją wodną zlewni potoku Smuga w Beskidzie Wyspowym

Abstract In this work, results of evaluation of potential water erosion threat of the Smuga stream basin in Beskid Wyspowy were presented according to the USLE model and the GIS techniques. The basin area is 5.40 km2; mean height is 636.4 m a.s.l. and mean basin slope is 21.32%. The basin is in a significant part covered by forest which is 54.26%, grasslands occupy 8.15% and arable lands 34.63%. The highest water erosion threat takes place on arable lands with high slopes and defective cultivation. Calculated soil loss is 2078.59 Mg yearly, which gives a unitary loss of 3.85 Mg for 1 ha. This classifies the investigated basin as very low threatened – second class in sixth degree scale.