Abstract
Abstract. We propose the implementation of the Soil and Landscape Evolution Model (SaLEM) for the spatiotemporal investigation of soil parent material evolution following a lithologically differentiated approach. Relevant parts of the established Geomorphic/Orogenic Landscape Evolution Model (GOLEM) have been adapted for an operational Geographical Information System (GIS) tool within the open-source software framework System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (SAGA), thus taking advantage of SAGA's capabilities for geomorphometric analyses. The model is driven by palaeoclimatic data (temperature, precipitation) representative of periglacial areas in northern Germany over the last 50 000 years. The initial conditions have been determined for a test site by a digital terrain model and a geological model. Weathering, erosion and transport functions are calibrated using extrinsic (climatic) and intrinsic (lithologic) parameter data. First results indicate that our differentiated SaLEM approach shows some evidence for the spatiotemporal prediction of important soil parental material properties (particularly its depth). Future research will focus on the validation of the results against field data, and the influence of discrete events (mass movements, floods) on soil parent material formation has to be evaluated.
Highlights
The properties of present-day soils rely to a large extent on their development under past climatic conditions
We describe the background of Soil and Landscape Evolution Model (SaLEM) and the state of its development
SaLEM has been developed using the System for Automated Geoscientific Analyses (SAGA) framework, which is an open-source software that provides an extensive application programming interface dedicated to spatial data analysis and visualization (Conrad et al, 2015)
Summary
The properties of present-day soils rely to a large extent on their development under past climatic conditions. Jenny (1941) was the first to formulate a functional relationship between important soil parameters and various local site factors, such as the climate, organisms, topography, time and parent material in his famous soil equation. Even though this functional relationship was not expressed numerically; the theoretical considerations of Jenny (1941) are the basis of today’s process-oriented modeling in soil sciences
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