Hydrology of Sites with Expansive Soils

DHI USA and Oregon State University win National Science Foundation Grant. The National Science Foundation has awarded a 3-year grant to Oregon State University and DHI for the project “Scale and Time Dependence of the Hydrology of Sites with Expansive Soils”. The objective is to understand the impacts of the slow (~ 1 month) hydration of clay-rich soils on hydrologic response of basins with areas of 0.01 to 100,000 ha. This focused scientific objective is combined with a bi-national (USA-Chile) study of water and soil management to understand how these special characteristics might influence management of basins with such soils to provide water for human consumption and irrigation, and to control erosive losses of soils which jeopardize long-term productivity of such landscapes. This scientific goal will be realized by validation of conceptual models through comparison of numerical simulation to data obtained from runoff plots and nested sub-basins within the rain-fed Lonquén River basin, covering 1172 km2 (117,200 ha) of clay-rich soils of the Mediterranean coastal region of central Chile.