The spiralling concept and nitrogen cycling in large river floodplain soils

Abstract

In large river floodplains, the high nutrient cycling capacity of floodplain soils, compared to that of upland ecosystems, is the consequence of energy and matter fluxes via flood deposits, These fluxes are under the control of local geomorphological features and the water regime. In this paper we illustrate how the geomorphological context of large river floodplains controls, both directly and indirectly, the nitrogen cycling within alluvial soils and, in turn, how it affects upstrcam/downstream fluxes of nitrogen.