In Europe, the establishment of short rotation coppice (SRC) systems for biomass production has been expanding in the last decades. Several studies have considered the impacts of SRC on soil properties; many have focused on studying its effect on biochemical properties while only a few have addressed physical and hydraulic properties. This study reports the assessment of soil physical and hydraulic properties on two SRC sites on sandy soils planted with 3-year-old poplar trees and an adjacent conventional agricultural field in Western Slovakia. All sites contain a comparable sandy loam soil texture and both SRC fields differed only in the groundwater accessibility. Water infiltration experiments were conducted in the field with subsequent sampling of the upper topsoil (0–5 cm depth). The samples were further processed in the laboratory to obtain the water retention and hydraulic conductivity functions of the soil covering a wide range of soil pore saturation. These hydraulic functions were fitted by using the bimodal version of Kosugi-Mualem’s hydraulic model to estimate the pore-size distribution (PSD) of the soils. The comparison between the SRC field neighboring the agricultural field and the latter showed similar hydraulic soil properties such as the topsoil water retention. However, macropore content, bulk density (BD) and infiltration capacity differed under SRC particularly in the tree row. Analogously, the two SRC fields showed similar topsoil water contents. Other soil properties differed presenting an increased macropore content and higher BD in the SRC field with distant groundwater connection. Our findings suggest that the SRC management may influence the topsoil properties.

在欧洲，近几十年来，用于生物质生产的短轮转小铲（SRC）系统的建立一直在扩大。一些研究考虑了SRC对土壤特性的影响。许多人专注于研究其对生化特性的影响，而只有极少数研究了物理和水力特性。这项研究报告了在斯洛伐克西部两个种植了3年生杨树的沙质土壤和一个相邻的常规农田上对两个SRC地点的土壤物理和水力特性的评估。所有地点的沙质壤土都具有可比性，两个SRC区域的地下水可及性也不同。在田间进行了渗水实验，随后对上表土（0-5厘米深）进行了采样。在实验室中对样品进行进一步处理，以获得覆盖大范围土壤孔隙饱和度的土壤的保水率和水力传导率函数。通过使用Kosugi-Mualem的水力模型的双峰模型拟合这些水力函数，以估计土壤的孔径分布（PSD）。农田附近的SRC田与后者之间的比较显示出类似的水力土壤特性，例如表土保水率。然而，在SRC下，大孔含量，堆密度（BD）和渗透能力不同，特别是在树行中。类似地，两个SRC场显示出相似的表层土壤含水量。其他土壤特性有所不同，表现为SRC油田中大孔隙含量增加和BD升高，且与地下水的连接距离较远。