Hydrological impacts of cropping systems and degradation of soil physical condition

Description

Two study components are proposed to assess the effects of soil degradation and cropping systems on agricultural watercourses. A first part of a study in instrumented micro-basins carried out at the IRDA experimental station in Saint-Lambert-de-Lauzon measures the effects of soil degradation and the type of crop on crop productivity, hydrology surface and underground, as well as on the quality of the water, according to a controlled system. A second part of the study at the scale of the sub-watershed (3-30 km²) takes advantage of historical data from the IRDA study network in twin agricultural basins (1997-2019) in order to project, under different conditions of land use and topography, the effects of cropping systems and soil conservation practices on floods, sediment flows and nutrient loads in rivers, following an approach coupling analysis and hydrological modeling.

Objective(s)

The main objective of the project is to describe the impact of cropping systems and the phenomenon of soil compaction on hydrological responses at the field scale, and to project these effects on stream flows, at the watershed scale.

The specific objectives are to:

• Measure in experimental plots the effects of soil degradation on crop productivity, hydrology and water quality;
• Analyze the effects of cropping systems and soil degradation on the hydrological responses of agricultural watercourses using hydrological analysis and modeling approaches.