The Hydrology and Soil of Trampoli

Trampoli is a small farming community located on the coast of an unknown, larger land. Because farming is so important to the villagers of Trampoli, it is also important to understand how the water and soil work in the town as well. For instance, one would want the ground to be both permeable and porous so it can store plenty of water for the plants.

The hydraulic, or water, cycle as a whole is fairly self-explanatory. Water falls down to the earth through precipitation, such as rain or snow, runs down as discharge into a reservoir such as lakes, rivers, and oceans, and through evaporation, collects again in the sky as clouds. The figure below is a good visual representation of this cycle:

                                            Image credit: http://www.solarnavigator.net/images/the_water_cycle.JPG
There are a few different types of water, gravitational, hygrosophic, and capillary. Capillary water is what plants (such as the one in the figure below) use to collect nutrients they need. This happens by the water moving up from pore space to pore space, in this case, against gravity.

                                Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

There are many aquiclude wells in Trampoli. This means that the water comes up to the surface from the water table through its own pressure, and does not have to be pumped. The residents of this small town use these wells to water their crops, cooking, and bathing. What they are most likely unaware of, however is that if they use more water that is replaced by participation, the ground will lower and fill in the area where the water used to be held.. The wells will then dry up, and they will no longer be able to be filled. If this happens, the residents of Trampoli will have to gather their water from the lake resting near the top of a mountain, or the ocean.

The figure below shows one of Trampoli's aquiclude wells. This one is used by the main character, Reguna to water his crops.

                                 Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois

Soil is another important factor in farming. For example, if the soil is too hard or dry, or if it does not have enough nutrients than no, or very few crops will grow. A farming community needs a very lucrative soil to produce its main source of income. Following the graph below, and assuming that Trampoli has a climate similar to North Eastern United States since it has four very distinct seasons that vary dramatically in temperature, and it is near the coast, the process of the soil in Trampoli is somewhere between Poderization and Calification.

                                          Image credit: http://clasfaculty.ucdenver.edu/callen/1202/Soils/SoilFormingRegimes.jpg

Also, looking at the soil profile below, there is a layer of soil that could be considered an ash-gray (at least if it was real). This color is from silica which is caused by a process called illuviation. This is a characteristic of soil formed by Podzolizatoin.

                              Photo Credit: Rune Factory Frontier. Marvelous Entertainment USA, Inc and XSeed Games.2007 Nintendo

                                                                                 Picture taken by: Tiffany Dubois