The relationship of soil and woodland cover on soil hydraulic conductivity at a hillslope scale and local flood management in the Scottish Borders

An important criteria in Natural Flood Management (NFM) is understanding and improving the surface soil permeability (or field, saturated hydraulic conductivity, Kfs; Talsma, 1987) of natural ground surfaces with the view of increasing rainfall infiltration and storage capacity (Marshall et al., 2009). At the local scale infiltrability and soil hydraulic conductivity (Ks) are key soil properties as they activate surface and near-surface flow paths that influence runoff generation (Elsenbeer, 2001; Bonell et al., 2010).