From soil to stream: modeling the catchment-scale hydrological effects of increased soil organic carbon

Heinz, Malve; Holzkämper, Annelie; Kumar, Rohini; Ledain, Sélène; Horton, Pascal; Schaefli, Bettina

doi:10.5194/hess-30-2879-2026

Articles | Volume 30, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2879-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2879-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 30, issue 9

Research article

|

13 May 2026

Research article |

| 13 May 2026

From soil to stream: modeling the catchment-scale hydrological effects of increased soil organic carbon

Malve Heinz, Annelie Holzkämper, Rohini Kumar, Sélène Ledain, Pascal Horton, and Bettina Schaefli

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2879-2026-supplement

Data sets

Precipitation input file aggregated from RhiresD and stationdata for the Broye catchment M. Heinz https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17243147

Model code and software

mHM_simulations: processing scripts for mHM application (v.1.1) M. Heinz https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17515165

mhm-ufz/mHM: v5.13.2 (v5.13.2) L. Samaniego et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1069202

Short summary

Droughts increasingly threaten agriculture. Improving soils to store more water, for example by increasing soil organic carbon, can help. We simulated this in a Swiss catchment and found that more soil carbon slightly increased soil water storage and evapotranspiration, modestly reduced floods, and shortened periods with very little streamflow. However in warmer, drier areas, these periods with little streamflow could sometimes last longer.