Modelling animal treading impacts on infiltration rate

Abstract

Sediment and chemical losses in surface runoff can be significant on land with rolling topography. These effects can be more severe in grazed pasture systems because of animal treading damage to the ground surface. The phenomenon of treading includes soil compaction, pugging, creating tracks and surface cracking. Modelling results presented in the paper provide estimation of changes in water infiltration rate with land of different topography, soil physical condition, season and grazing. These models were derived from field data collected over 3 years and were specified for micro-sites (0.5 m2). The modelling results identified that micro-site infiltration analysis was appropriate to land with complex grazing and topographic conditions. The correlation between the model estimation and field measures was up to 73% (adjusted R2). Keywords: animal treading, infiltration rate, soil compaction, runoff, cellular automata, spatial modelling