Influences of land disturbance and management regime on infiltration and runoff

Infiltration and runoff were measured using a rainfall simulator and runoff frames at five sites. Three sites were located in hayfields and two were i n pastures. One of the hayfield sites consisted of reclaimed mineland. Thre e management treatments (hayed, mowed, and fallow) were applied to the hayf ield plots and two treatments (grazed and fallow) were applied to the pastu re plots. Runoff volume was measured at 5-min intervals to an elapsed time of 30 min and then infiltration rates and accumulated infiltration were det ermined. Runoff volumes were low from all treatments (runoff coefficients < 0.50), even under the high intensity used and high antecedent soil moistur e conditions. Grazing did not affect infiltration in comparison to fallow. Initially, abstractive losses other than infiltration were also low (< 9 mm ). In general, hayed and mowed treatments had higher infiltration rates and accumulated infiltration than the fallow treatment. The reclaimed and unmi ned soils had similar infiltration variables. Linear relationships between initial abstraction and 5-min infiltration rate with degree of saturation w ere not significant at 5% significance level.