Time to ponding and initial runoff in a commercial olive orchard (SW Andalusia, Spain) with different cover crops: Numerical simulation and temporal stability

Abstract

Cover crops (CC) in olive groves and other woody crops provide an environmental-friendly alternative to conventional tillage for land management. Indeed, CC reduce soil and nutrient losses and also the average runoff coefficients in comparison with conventional tillage and no-tillage systems (Gómez et al., 2009). Plant covers are also important for retaining and releasing nutrients under different tree demand rates (Gómez-Muñoz et al., 2014). We hypothesize that the hydrological response of the soil in an olive orchard, related to the time of ponding (Tp) and the initial runoff at each soil portion (Q0), is affected by the different CC. In addition, the spatial patterns of Tp and Q0 and their temporal stability depend on the different CC. To achieve this goal we run the water-balance DR2-2013© SAGA v1.1 model in 6 plots under 3 different treatments (tillage, mix and homogeneous CC) at high spatial resolution (0.5 x0.5 m) and during 2 hydrological years (2009/10 and 2010/11).