Infiltration rates BEE

Water infiltration capacity at EFForTS-BEE: To quantify soil water infiltration capacity, we measured saturated soil hydraulic conductivity (K_fs, cm h-1) using a dual-head infiltrometer (Saturo, Meter, USA) from March to May 2018 near the subplot center in 35 (out of 52) experimental plots of EFForTS-BEE and in the four management-as-usual control plots. Due to a broken instrument, the 17 remaining experimental plots were measured using a custom manual double-ring infiltrometer, which tends to yield higher Kfs estimates than the dual-head approach because there is no correction for lateral flow. In three plots, Kfs was measured with both devices; we plotted these values against each other and found a close linear relationship (R² = 0.98, P = 0.066), which we used to correct the values from the 17 plots that were measured with the manual double-ring approach (Kfs_corr = 1.44 + 0.55 Kfs_double_ring) to allow for comparability across all 56 plots. In the dataset, plot ID, measurement date and the according saturated soil hydraulic conductivity values are provided as taken from the digital reading of the Saturo device and the manual reading with the double-ring approach (K_fs_raw, cm h-1). Plots measured with the Saturo dual-head infiltrometer are marked with 'S', while plots measured with the custom manual double-ring infiltrometer are marked with 'R'. The final column presents the final K_fs values (K_fs_final, cm h-1), i.e. after linear correction (see above) for the plots measured with the double-ring approach.