HR: 1340h
AN: H43D-0529    [Abstracts]
TI: Co-evolution of plants and topography - a modeling approach
AU: * Flores-Cervantes, J H
EM: homefc@mit.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Building 48-212 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
AU: Bras, R L
EM: rlbras@mit.edu
AF: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Building 48-213 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
AB: Topography controls much of the soil moisture distribution over a landscape. Vegetation depends on the soil moisture. Hence topography and vegetation are tightly coupled. Vegetation also controls geomorphic and hydrologic processes. Plant cover protects the surface against erosion, reducing its erodibility. Vegetation cover also increases soil's infiltration capacity and thus reduces overland flow, but on the other hand, it also may create heterogeneities in the surface, patches, that may result in differential erosion of the surface and can result in an augmented channelization of the flow along bare surfaces. Here we present the preliminary findings of exploring the multidimensional interaction between vegetation, hydrology and erosion in a 3D landscape evolution model where climate, topography, soil moisture and plants interact and reshape the landscape through time.
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1815 Erosion
DE: 1824 Geomorphology: general (1625)
DE: 1838 Infiltration
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005