Topographycal Effect on Soil Respiration in Mountanious Catchment

There are few studies dealing with the time series data of soil respiration and its spatial variation in a small mountainous catchment which is located on the complex terrain in Japan, generally. Soil respiration rate was measured at 96 soil colors in the small mountainous catchment (1.6ha) in this study. The relation between soil temperature, soil moisture content ratio and measured soil respiration rate was expressed by one function in spite that measured places were located at the different topographical parts. To verify this function, soil respiration rate was measured at other 264 soil colors in the same catchment. The relative difference between calculated and measured soil respiration rate was 25%. The time series data of daily soil respiration was estimated by this function used with the monitoring data of soil temperature and soil moisture content ratio at 5 places in this cachment. These daily soil respiration rates were fluctuated almost same time and its relative variation ranges between 50-140% in one year.