Runoff and Infiltration (4 videos)

Water Infiltration

Water Infiltration: Illustrates how water moves through soil and the forces that control its movement. Terms covered include infiltration, matric potential, gravitational water, saturation, drainage, field capacity, wilting point, and runoff.

Ground Cover

Ground Cover: Protecting the soil surface with mulch helps reduce soil erosion and increase water infiltration. In this video, four soil boxes with increasing amounts of surface cover from plant material illustrate how ground cover reduces sediment and water loss from the soil surface when water is applied as rain or irrigation.

Runoff and Infiltration

Runoff and Infiltration: Using a rainfall simulator, this video illustrates differences in how water runs off the soil and infiltrates into the soil as a function of soil cover.

Surface Cover and Runoff

Surface Cover and Runoff: Soil from bare ground is compared to soil with a living cover of pasture grass to illustrate the effect that plants have at reducing soil loss to runoff and increasing the amount of water that can infiltrate into the ground.