TY - GEN A1 - Elsenbeer, Helmut A1 - Cassel, Keith A1 - Castro, Jorge T1 - Spatial analysis of soil hydraulic conductivity in a tropical rain forest catchment N2 - The topography of first-order catchments in a region of western Amazonia was found to exhibit distinctive, recurrent features: a steep, straight lower side slope, a flat or nearly flat terrace at an intermediate elevation between valley floor and interfluve, and an upper side slope connecting interfluve and intermediate terrace. A detailed survey of soil-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K sat)-depth relationships, involving 740 undisturbed soil cores, was conducted in a 0.75-ha first-order catchment. The sampling approach was stratified with respect to the above slope units. Exploratory data analysis suggested fourth-root transformation of batches from the 0–0.1 m depth interval, log transformation of batches from the subsequent 0.1 m depth increments, and the use of robust estimators of location and scale. The K sat of the steep lower side slope decreased from 46 to 0.1 mm/h over the overall sampling depth of 0.4 m. The corresponding decrease was from 46 to 0.1 mm/h on the intermediate terrace, from 335 to 0.01 mm/h on the upper side slope, and from 550 to 0.015 mm/h on the interfluve. A depthwise comparison of these slope units led to the formulation of several hypotheses concerning the link between K sat and topography. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 051 Y1 - 2008 UR - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1559 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-16979 ER -