On the Influence of Topography Upon Scaling Characteristics of Soil Hydraulic Parameters

One of the most important issues concerning studies into the hydrologic cycle and climate prediction today is the upscaling of soil hydraulic parameters in the unsaturated zone. Ecological phenomena occur differently, and due to different causes, at a wide range of scales. Efforts to model hydrologic processes and phenomena, with particular emphasis on those occurring in the unsaturated zone, are currently ongoing at various scales. Input data are required for these models at their representative scales. However, measurement of parameter data at all such required scales is impractical as it entails huge outlay of finances, time and effort. Inter-connections often exist between information across these scales. However, the exact mathematical or physical nature of these connections is generally a mystery. Over the past few decades, numerous efforts have been conducted to either understand and solve these mysteries, or to find a way around them to obtain effective parameters at multiple scales. Most upscaling efforts thus far have opted to ignore the effect of topography in their derivation of effective parameter values. This approach is reasonable as long as the coarser support dimensions are smaller than hill slopes. When upscaling fine scale hydraulic parameter data to hillslope scales and beyond, however, topography plays a bigger role and cannot be ignored. We present a study of the influence of topographic variations on the effective, upscaled soil hydraulic parameters under different hillslope configurations. Fine resolution parameters were upscaled using the Power Averaging Operator methodology which incorporates features from both mean-type and mode-type aggregation. Simulations of multiple hypothetical scenarios were conducted using the HYDRUS- 3D hydrologic modeling software to develop empirical relationships between the topography and the soil hydraulic parameters for matching hydrologic responses. These relationships may be assimilated into currently existing schemes to derive a more comprehensive algorithm to upscale fine resolution soil hydraulic parameters to any footprint dimension.