ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the hydrologic properties of soils and how those properties are affected by urbanization and discusses actions that land managers can use to optimize the hydrologic properties of problematic urban soils. Traffic from urban vehicles and heavy machinery both during and after construction also leads to soil compaction and consequent reductions in porosity, permeability, and hydraulic conductivity. The chapter discusses various physical alteration practices to achieve more optimal soil-water dynamics include soil replacement, tillage and subsoiling, compost amendments, use of engineered media. The beneficial effects of compost are attributed to simply diluting highly compacted soils with less dense organic materials, which increases porosity and decreases bulk density. One of the challenges of sustainable urban development is to reduce the water quantity and quality impacts of stormwater runoff. Because the urbanization process often removes vegetation and leads to compacted soils, urban soils have numerous problematic hydrologic properties.
