Terrestrial laser scanning soil surfaces: a field methodology to examine soil surface roughness and overland flow hydraulics

摘要

Conventional roughness–resistance relationships developed for pipe and open-channel flows cannot accurately describe shallownoverland flows over natural rough surfaces. This paper develops a new field methodology combining terrestrial laser scanningn(TLS) and overland flow simulation to provide a high-resolution dataset of surface roughness and overland flow hydraulicsnas simulated on natural bare soil surfaces. This method permits a close examination of the factors controlling flow velocitynand a re-evaluation of the relationship between surface roughness and flow resistance. The aggregate effect of flow dynamics,ninfiltration and depression storage on retarding the passage of water over a surface is important where runoff-generating areasnare distant from well-defined channels. Experiments to separate these effects show that this ‘effective resistance’ is dominatednby surface roughness. Eight measurements of surface roughness are found to be related to flow resistance: standard deviation ofnelevations, inundation ratio, pit density (measured both perpendicular and parallel to the flow direction), slope, median depth,nskewness of the depth distribution and frontal area. Hillslope position is found to affect the significant roughness measures.nIn contrast, infiltration rate has little effect on the velocity of water fronts advancing over the soil surfaces examined herenand the effect of depression storage is limited. Overland flow resistance is depth dependent where complex microtopographicnstructures are progressively inundated.