Legacies of historic land use as soil landscape components – Distribution, properties and functions of small anthropogenic relief features and soils in two catchments in Eastern Bavaria

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Raab; Dr. Anna Schneider
• Subject Area: Physical Geography
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448807789

Human land use often results in direct and indirect modifications of surface morphology and soils. Small anthropogenic relief features and associated soils are valuable but neglected archives for the study of land use history and landscape evolution, and, moreover, affect current ecosystems through their specific ecological site conditions. Areas with a high spatial density of such land use legacies are characterized by a land use legacy soil landscape with a high spatial variability of soil stratigraphy and properties. While more and more studies make use of high resolution digital elevation models (DEM) to investigate anthropogenic geomorphology, there are still significant knowledge gaps regarding the distribution and properties of land use legacy soils. The main aim of this project is to characterize the spatial distribution, properties and ecological function of legacies of historic land use in forest areas with a dynamic land use history. The main work packages comprise 1) a large-scale detection and mapping of land use legacies and their interpretation in relation to natural and historic landscape structures; 2) the mapping of land use legacy and reference soils and analyses of their properties in relation to anthropogenic relief features for selected study areas, and 3) an assessment of land use legacy soil and landform effects on soil moisture regimes. The work programme combines GIS-based analyses of DEM and additional spatially distributed information, sedimentological and pedological field and laboratory methods and applications of a numerical simulation model. The study region of the project comprises the catchments of the rivers Vils and Pfreimd in Northern Bavaria and adjacent forest areas. The long and dynamic land use history and the manifold geology and geomorphology of the area offer ample opportunities for research on anthropogenic soil landscapes. Land use legacies will be mapped from DEM for the total study region (~2000 km2), the detailed mapping and analysis of soil properties in relation to land use legacies will focus on six study areas (< 10 km2, two study areas for each of the three geologic sub-regions of the study region), and the model-based analysis of land use legacy effects on soil moisture will be assessed for one of the study areas and the surrounding catchment (< 100 km2). The combination of large-scale mapping and small-scale analyses aims at assessing the relevance of land use legacy soils at the landscape scale.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants