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<br />Wells, W.G., II., 1981, Some effi~cts of brushfues on erosion proo:esses in coastal <br />Southern California, in Erosion and Sediment Transport in Pacifk Rim <br />Steeplands: Christchurch, New Zealand, International i.ssociation of <br />Hydrological Science, no. 132" , p. 305-342. <br />This paper reports on some of tIe effects of ftre on erosion proces,es in chaparral settings. <br />In the: discussion on water repellency, the author describes the irnpications of an intensely <br />repellent subsurface layer on so~ movement. He emphasizes that the presence of such a <br />conftning layer effectively reduces the storage capacity of the soil mande by 20 times or <br />more, limiting hydrologic activity to the upper 5 cm. Photographs depict the wettable bed <br />and surface soils of a levee-borde::ed rill, overlying a nonwettable so~. The autb.or points out <br />that: in areas with water-repellent ,;oils" these miniature debris flo'v types of rills tend to <br />predominate over other rill formations. He suggests that the riUs form as a result of <br />increased pore pressure above the water-repellent layer, which reduces the intergranular <br />stress and shear strength 0:: the soil mass, and ultimately leads to failure in the form of a <br />small debris flow. Evidence frorr several storm events is provided, but the author notes that <br />further testing is needed to confirm the process. <br /> <br />Wessel, A. T., 1988, On using the effe,ctive contact angle and thl water drop <br />penetration time for cla,;si.fication of water repellency in dune soils: Earth <br />Surface Processes and Landforms, v.13, no. 6, p. 555-56:. <br />This paper compares and contra';ts various methods used to classifT water repellency. The <br />methods used in this study involved measuring the water drop penetration time (\XIDPT) <br />and the effective or observed solid..liqmd contact angle, a.', rather than the contact angle a.. <br />The investigation determined th:,t water repellency in dune soils w lS best characterized by <br />water drop penetration time, because it subdivided water-repellen t soils and was easy to <br />measure. It was also found to be a better indicator of the erosion pc tential of soils, since the <br />time required for inflltratioc of precipit:,tion is related to the amount of surface runoff. <br /> <br />Witter, J.V., Jungerius, P .D., and ten Harkel, M.}., 1991, Modeli ng water erosion and <br />the impact of water repl~llency:" Catena, v. 18, p. 115-124. <br />Measurements of surface runoff and sediment yield from coastal dune plots in the <br />Netherlands were used to develop a regression model for water er,)sion. Water repellency <br />was expressed differently in the two catchments studied, and subsequently r,esulted in very <br />different responses to precipitation. The more water-repellent catchment yielded runoff that <br />was an order of magnitude higher than the wettable catchment. However, sediment yield <br />was an order of magnitude less. 1be authors attributed this anomaly to presence of moss <br />vegetation in the less wettable catchment. Although moss inducec water repellency in the <br />dune sands, it also acted to srabiLze the soil surface, and thus count, red the effects of higher <br />runoff. Since soil moisture con,lit ons were found to signifIcantly Lnfluence the expression <br />of water repellency (and hence, nrnoff parameters), the author slggested that antecedent <br />moisture should be taken into account when modeling water erosior in dune ,:n0.ronments. <br />Note: This study observed higher pH values in the more water-rep',llent soils, in contrast to <br />Roberts and Carbon (1971), who detetmined that an acidic pH w: s associated with severe <br />repellency. <br /> <br />40 <br />