ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain.
Sec. Nature-Based Solutions
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsus.2025.1631482
This article is part of the Research TopicNature-Based Solutions for Managing Soil Erosion and Enhancing Soil StabilityView all 5 articles
Exploring the relationship between saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and roots distribution: two case studies in Garfagnana (Northern Tuscany, Italy) and Zollikofen (Bern, Switzerland)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Istituto di Fisica Applicata “N. Carrara”- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IFAC-CNR), Florence, Italy, Florence, Italy
- 2Department of Physical, Earth and the Environmental Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Tuscany, Italy
- 3Bern University of Applied Sciences, Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Soil hydraulic conductivity and root distribution represent two important parameters towards the engineering applications, ranging from quantification of hydrological and geotechnical processes (e.g., water runoff, shallow landslides) to agricultural management and forestry practices. To investigate the relationship among these soil parameters, two study areas located in Italy (Garfagnana, Tuscany) and Switzerland (Zollikofen, Bern) were selected. Root Area Ratio (RAR) and soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) data were collected through the application of the trench method and the constant hydraulic head (Aardwark permeameter) and falling-head methods, respectively. Results highlight that Root Area Ratio concentrates in the first soil layers and decreases sharply following deeper layers. Root Area Ratio and soil saturated hydraulic conductivity show positive linear correlation that depends on the forest station. Our results support the hypothesis that the presence of roots represent a key factor in preferential infiltration and, therefore, hydrological models applied for the runoff modelling, slope stability and soil erosion can be improved considering the spatial distribution of roots derived by field measurement and/or remote sensing data.
Keywords: Soil permeability, Root distribution, hydraulic conductivity, root density, Soil hydraulic properties
Received: 19 May 2025; Accepted: 31 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Marzini, Papasidero, D'addario, Schwarz and Disperati. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Lorenzo Marzini, Istituto di Fisica Applicata “N. Carrara”- Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IFAC-CNR), Florence, Italy, Florence, Italy
Massimiliano Schwarz, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Bern, 3012, Bern, Switzerland
Leonardo Disperati, Department of Physical, Earth and the Environmental Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, 53100, Tuscany, Italy
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