ABSTRACT
Brilliant blue dyeing and water breakthrough curve were applied to study the number and distribution of macropores and their relations to the preferential flow in typical sub-tropic broad-leaved forest soils of Simian Mountains. The radii of the macropores were mainly between 0. 3 and 3.0 mm, with the macroporosities in the range of 6.3% to 10.5%, and the macropores were always distributed in aggregation with increasing soil depth. The number of the macropores in each radius interval of dye-stained areas was tenfold increase than that of blank areas. The number of the macropores with radius larger than 0.3 mm, especially larger than 1.5 mm, was the most important factor affecting the occurrence of preferential flow. Significant correlations were found between the number of macropores and the water steady effluent volume, with the highest correlation coefficients of 0.842 and 0.879 for the radii intervals of 0.7-1.5 mm and 1.5-3.0 mm, respectively. Macro-pore continuity in dye-stained areas was better than that in blank areas, especially in the radius interval of 1.5-3.0 mm, with the biggest difference of 78.31%. In dye-stained areas, the number of macropores decreased gradually with soil depth. The filler-like distribution of macropores formed an effective water pressure gradient, which resulted in the preferential transport of water.