multi-scale geomorphic classifications

Multi-Scale Geomorphic Classifications In Predictive and Update Digital Soil Mapping

Jay Stratton Noller Professor of Landscape Pedology

Leader, Faculty of Soil Science Oregon State University

Collaborators: Karen Bennett (USFS), Rob Vaughan (USFS), Karen Vaughan (CalPoly SLO) and Chris Ringo (OSU)

Soil – Substrate Relation Problem

“users must extract and reconstruct soil-to-substrate [geomorphic / stratigraphic] relationships from written descriptions and visualize the spatial distribution from the plan view [soil survey] maps.” --Wysocki et al. (2005:168) • Digital soil mapping techniques have limited probing depth • Improvements can be made by relating landform to substrate

Geomorphic and Stratigraphic Inference

• Parallel projects in PacNW • Testing morphometric tools • Developing new geomorphic maps • Testing these in digital soil mapping

• Initial, update and harmonization soil surveys

New megageomorphic map of OR-WA Landform Associations (1:100,000)

Noller (in prep.)

Broad scale

Fine scale

National Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units

Landtype Association

Domain, Division

Province

Section, Subsection

Landtype

Landtype phase

Global

Landscape

Site

Continental

Regional

Land Unit

Baileys – Domain, Division Province

EPA/ Omernik’s EcoRegions Levels II, III, IV

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Understanding the form, function and ecology of a site depends on the scale at which one is working. The national Hierarchical Framework of Ecological Units developed and used by the Forest Service and other agencies to describe areas of similarity and differences. The levels of specificity vary with scale with the broadest units described at the global level with general ecological domains (basic life form differences) and the finest unit descriptions at the site level with refined parameters that describe ecological conditions.

LTAs – Geoecological View

Mt Hood National Forest-Lower White River Wilderness Source: USFS R6 Public Affairs Office Glacial Volcano Mountains

LfA’s - Process Based Mapping

• Eolian • Fluvial • Glacial • Lacustrine • Marine, coastal • Mass Movement • Tectonic • Volcanic • Other

3 Levels of Geomorphic Mapping for USFS

Landform Shapes • Terrain model (30 m raster) • 1:24 –1:250k: tuned to R6 Landform Groups • Geomorphic interpretation

• Cartography - Noller • Grouping of landform shapes Landform Associations • Groupings of landform

groups All levels are nested,

but not purely

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Several new GIS coverages have been produced with this project. Three levels of geomorphic mapping has been produced and is available for use. The first is a characterization of landforms, geomorphic units that represent ridges or sideslopes, concave headwalls, toeslopes, stream terraces and active floodplains. These finer detailed units were then grouped into like pattern to produce landform groups. Landform Groups is the second new geomorphic layer produced by this project. The third product is a grouping of landform groups into Landform Associations. Landform Associations will be the geologic/geomorphic level that is combined with vegetation series to ultimately create the Landtype Associations.

Comparison of Geomorphic Classification Systems Scale

Block~ Map Scale*

EPA USFS NRCS - NCSS

F 1:500k to 1:3M Ecoregion II Landform Section*

Landscape ad hoc differentiation

E 1:250k to 1:500k Ecoregion III Landform Subsection*

D 1:100k to 1:250k Ecoregion IV Landform Association*

C 1:24k to 1:100k Landform Group*

B 1:12k to 1:24k Landform^ Landform

A <1:12k Landform Element^ Microfeature

~Arbitrary order; for discussion purposes *Noller 2012: USFS Region Six protocol for geomorphological mapping ^from USFS Geomorphic Description System

Bakeoven soilscape

100 m

Geomorphology in SSURGO

“Soil on patterned ground, with mounds and intermounds, on plateaus of Columbia River Basalt.” This may be parsed to a hierarchy as follows:

Landscape Columbia River Basalt Landscape plateaus Landform patterned ground Landform mounds intermounds

Mining Texts for Geomorphology

• In the Bakeoven official series description (OSD): “The Bakeoven series consists of very shallow, well drained soils that formed in mixed slope alluvium, loess and residuum weathered from basalt.”

• In the Condon OSD:

“Bakeoven soils are on benches, hills, plateaus, and canyon slopes.”

PROCESS

LANDFORM

Scale Block Process A B C D

Non-Genetic [plain] benches; hills hills NA Coastal NA NA NA NA

Lacustrine NA NA NA NA Fluvial NA canyon slopes canyon slopes NA

Solution NA NA NA NA Eolian NA NA NA NA Glacial NA NA NA NA

Periglacial mound - intermound patterned ground patterned ground [periglacial uplands]

Mass Movement [hill] slopes canyon slopes canyon slopes NA

Volcanic [flow] [flow unit] Columbia River Basalt [CRB Province]

Structural [plain] plateaus [sulcate] plateaus [incised] plateaus

Geomorphology of the Bakeoven soil series

[ ] = inferred from the description

Morphometric Tools

Relief Grid SW Oregon Whiteness shows higher elevations – used with a roughness index to get at naming structures

Proximal Max Relief Classes Wallowa Mtn area shows mountains and canyons/gorges

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Several morphometric tools were used to characterize landscapes. In addition to conventional slope, aspect and slope length, the landscape was characterized based on relief above a common plain and to understand the roughness or degree of dissection of each particular landscape. Another tool looked at the proximity of relief classes that characterized canyons, gorges, streams and elevational gradients on mountain slopes.

ArcMap-Spatial Analyst Landserf

ArcSIE Mathematica

Blackart R

DEST SOLIM

ENVI Tapes

ETGeotools Terrain Analysis System (TAS)

Geomorphometry Toolbox (gtb) TEUI Toolkit

Geospatial Modeling Environment (GME) Whitebox GAT

IDRISI X Tools

Imagine 3d Mapper

LANDMAPR SAGA 1This is not an exclusive list.

Terrain Attribute Generators (TAGs) 1

LIDAR-derived 10 m DEM

Traditional 10 m DEM

TAG Sensitivity Analysis

• Input DEM • LiDAR vs 10 m • Positional errors

• Algorithms • Range of input values • Range of coeficients • Intercomparisons

• “Downstream” effects • Error propagation

Landform Associations Map of OR-WA

Nol

ler (

in p

rep.

)

Alpine Basins and Glacial Mountains

Angulate Plateaus

Hydropedological Model

Noller et al 2007

Constructed Weathered Eroded Dissected

Transmission>> Runoff

Transmission> Runoff

Runoff > Transmission

Runoff >> Transmission

Air Water / Snow

Rock

Soil

Fluvial Plains Plateaus Incised Plateaus

Canyonlands, Escarpments

ROCK COLUMN

LANDFORM ASSOCIATION

WATER ROUTING

FACET

Hydropedological Model Constructed Weathered Eroded Dissected

Transmission>> Runoff

Transmission> Runoff

Runoff > Transmission

Runoff >> Transmission

Fluvial Plains Plateaus Incised Plateaus

Canyonlands, Escarpments

LANDFORM ASSOCIATION

WATER ROUTING

FACET

Ryan Ranch Project, (Paleo)Lake Benham, Deschutes NF

Landform Associations

Geology

Soil Resource Inventory

Kiwa Watershed

Ryan Ranch LiDAR

Extent of proposed inundation

Historic Inlet/Outlet Channels

Berm and borrow ditch

Artificial ditch

Courtesy Peter Sussmann, Deschutes NF

Diatoms

Courtesy Peter Sussmann, Deschutes NF

Gla

cial

De

posit

s

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Vision is an image painted with words. My painting of several years ago, seen here and on the easel in this room, is my vision of crops and soils as interdependent entities with the shared mission of engagement, outreach, research and teaching. This interdependence is not an artificial convenience of administration, rather it is because of the evolved physical and biological relationship of a crop to its mother soil. That is what I show here in my painting of a wheat field above the glacial relict mound-intermound pattern of soils in the Columbia Basin – metaphors for the major physical and human parts of the Department. Each is well defined and share a road ahead towards the horizon, with a turn towards an unseen future. My vision of the road ahead for Crops and Soils is not one of judgment, rather it is with an open mind I expect to see what lies around that corner with fresh eyes.

multi-scale geomorphic classifications

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