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Solifluction
Solifluction is a process where soil is saturated and starts flowing over a slope. The first application that included solifluction in LAPSUS, was Temme and Veldkamp’s study in South Africa.
Case Studies: » South Africa
Technical Information
Knowledge of the controlling factors of solifluction is incomplete, though the positive influence of slope and seasonal saturation and the negative influence of vegetation are known (e.g.Matsuoka, 2001). Realizing moreover that solifluction is accelerated creep (Matsuoka et al., 2005) that behaves in a less diffusive way, Follain’s (2006) implementation of creep was adapted to describe solifluction.
In this implementation, the sum of outflow and infiltration is used as a proxy for saturation. Moreover, the stabilizing role of vegetation is included:This implementation leads to more solifluction and less diffusive behaviour with increasing saturation of the soil.
Seasonality of rainfall is ignored in the implementation above. Yet, the distribution of rainfall over a year is crucial for solifluction because it determines seasonal saturation of the soil (Matsuoka, 2001). It seems a good idea to correct for differences in seasonality when data about them are available.
References
- Follain, S., Minasny, B., McBratney, A.B. and Walter, C., 2006. Simulation of soil thickness evolution in a complex agricultural landscape at fine spatial and temporal scales. Geoderma, 133(1-2): 71-86.
- Matsuoka, N., 2001. Solifluction rates, processes and landforms: a global review. Earth-Science Reviews, 55(1-2): 107-134.
- Matsuoka, N., Ikeda, A. and Date, T., 2005. Morphometric analysis of solifluction lobes and rock glaciers in the Swiss Alps. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 16(1): 99-113.