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FOREST SOIL INFORMATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN THE WESTERN OREGON CASCADES BASED ON LANDTYPE MAPPING
Citation:
Kern, J. S., M G. Johnson, D. Shank, AND D. A. Lammers. FOREST SOIL INFORMATION FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN THE WESTERN OREGON CASCADES BASED ON LANDTYPE MAPPING. Presented at American Society of Agronomy 2000 Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, November 5-9, 2000.
Description:
Forest health monitoring and other environmental assessments require information on the spatial distribution of basic soil physical and chemical properties. Traditional soil surveys are not available for large areas of forestland in the western US but there are some soil resource inventories based on landtypes. These landtypes are defined by parent material and landform as they affect management. We are characterizing the catenas of soils within each landtype in the Sweet Home Ranger District, Willamette National Forest, using directed and random transects. These catenas are being used to make preliminary maps of basic soil properties and to aid in developing a soil sampling strategy. Most of the landtypes were found to have somewhat systematic distributions of soils but sufficient information regarding rock fragment content, soil depth, and soil temperature regimes is missing and will be updated using ancillary data and fieldwork. The landtype mapping is being integrated with adjacent traditional detailed soil survey data (that use soil series) to create full coverages for watersheds being studied. The landtype units and the soil series are being translated to a system describing the soils in terms of parent material, texture, depth, organic matter, and landscape position that is expected to be much more broadly understood.