WaterViz

Current Soil Water Content

Soil is made of many small mineral and organic particles, with pore spaces between them that can be filled with air or water. The technical term for the amount of water stored in a soil is “soil water content.” Soil water content is the percentage of a soil volume that is water. In other words, if soil water content is 25%, that means that 1 cubic yard of soil contains 0.25 cubic yards of water.

At Hubbard Brook, the top 20 inches of soil in our watersheds can hold approximately 8.4 inches of water. The current amount of that capacity is shown here as water in a barrel.

When the top 20 inches of soil are at maximum soil water holding capacity, the soil water content is ~8.4 inches, and the barrel is 100% full. Additional precipitation entering the watershed will most likely flow directly out of the watershed, and may cause downstream flooding. Conversely, when the top 20 inches of soil are dryer, or below maximum soil water holding capacity, the soil water content is less than 8.4 inches, and the barrel is proportionately less full. The soils now have the ability to retain incoming precipitation, and may store water and buffer downstream ecosystems from flooding.

Water Flux

This graph shows water input and output from the system.

Water input is measured by precipitation sensors, and water output is the sum of stream discharge and evapotranspiration (modeled from air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, solar radiation, and barometric pressure).