water Article Soil Hydraulic Properties of Plinthosol in the Middle Yangtze River Basin, Southern China Yongwu Wang 1, Tieniu Wu 1,2,* , Jianwu Huang 1, Pei Tian 1,* , Hailin Zhang 1 and Tiantian Yang 3 1 Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China;
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[email protected] (H.Z.) 2 Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA 3 School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA;
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[email protected] (P.T.) Received: 16 May 2020; Accepted: 20 June 2020; Published: 23 June 2020 Abstract: Soil hydraulic properties are ecologically important in arranging vegetation types at various spatial and temporal scales. However, there is still a lack of detailed understanding of the basic parameters of plinthosol in the Middle Yangtze River basin. This paper focuses on the soil hydraulic properties of three plinthosol profiles at Yueyang (YE), Wuhan (WH), and Jiujiang (JU) and tries to reveal the origin of plinthosol and the relationship among the soil hydraulic parameters. Discriminant analysis indicated that the plinthosol in the JU profile was of aeolian origin, while that in the WH and YE profiles was of alluvial origin; soil hydraulic properties varied greatly among these profiles. The proportion of macro-aggregates (>0.25 mm, weight%) in the JU profile (88.28%) was significantly higher than that in the WH (73.63%) and YE (57.77%) profiles; the water holding capacity and saturated hydraulic conductivity of JU plinthosol was also higher than that of WH and YE plinthosol; the fact that Dr and Di of the JU profile are lower than those of the YE and WH profiles illustrates the stability of JU plinthosol is better than that of YE and WH plinthosol, which is consistent with the fractal dimension of aggregates.