Fig 1.
Digital elevation model (DEM) showing Goodman watershed and Crow Canyon watershed inside of the larger McElmo Subbasin (HUC-8), and the Coffey watershed inside of the Montezuma Subbasin (HUC-8).
Inset (in the top right) showing the McElmo Dome Subbasin of southwestern Colorado and of the central Mesa Verde region. The data for the DEM was acquired from the USGS National Map Viewer (public domain).
Table 1.
Available Water Capacity (AWC), and field capacity and wilting point volumetric percentages for different soil particle-size classes.
Fig 2.
Classification of the three variables used in the SMPM for Goodman watershed.
(A) The reclassification of plant available water (PAW) into five ranks, where very high represents the highest amounts of PAW, and the very low represents the lowest amounts of PAW. (B) The output shows the reclassification of slope into five ranks, where very high represents very low slope or a flat surface, and very low represents the steepest slopes. (C) The reclassification of the solar radiation (growing season) output into five ranks, where very high represents the lowest amounts of solar radiation, and the very low represents the highest amounts of solar radiation.
Table 2.
Soil moisture proxy model summary for the Goodman watershed.
Fig 3.
Soil moisture proxy model results for Goodman watershed.
The output (as well as the output for the additional watersheds) shows that the very high rank represents very high soil moisture, and very low represents the lowest soil moisture areas.
Table 3.
Soil moisture proxy model summary of the area (m2) of soil moisture and percentage of Goodman watershed (GW), Goodman watershed (GW) mesa-only, Crow Canyon watershed (CCW), and Coffey watershed (CW) of the five ranks.
Area and percentages exclude the “no data” portions of the modeled watersheds.
Fig 4.
Model results for Goodman watershed mesa-only.
(A) The reclassification of plant available water (PAW) into five ranks, where very high represents the highest amounts of PAW, and the very low represents the lowest amounts of PAW. (B) The output shows the reclassification of slope into five ranks, where very high represents very low slope or a flat surface, and very low represents the steepest slopes. (C) The reclassification of the solar radiation (growing season) output into five ranks, where very high represents the lowest amounts of solar radiation, and the very low represents the highest amounts of solar radiation. (D) The output shows that the very high rank represents very high soil moisture, and very low represents the lowest soil moisture areas.
Fig 5.
Classification of the three variables used in the SMPM and the SMPM results for the Crow Canyon watershed with close ups of the Pueblo Learning Center (PLC) and Check Dam (CD) gardens.
(A) Reclassification of plant available water (PAW). The arrows show the location of the soil moisture sensors in the Pueblo Learning Center (PLC) and Check Dam (CD) gardens. (B) Reclassification of slope. (C) Reclassification of solar radiation (growing season). (D) Soil moisture proxy model results. (E) Zoomed in version of D, showing that the Check Dam garden is in the very high soil moisture, and the Pueblo Learning Center garden is in the high soil moisture.
Table 4.
Collected soil moisture data (m3/m3 –volumetric water content (VMC)) and temperature data (celsius) from five soil moisture sensors in the Crow Canyon and Coffey watersheds.
The values from the three sensors in the Check Dam garden were averaged together. The values represent averages of hourly data from May 23, 2015 to September 2, 2015 and May 15 to September 2, 2016 and 2017, which was treated as the agricultural growing season. The soil moisture sensors were placed at 15 cm, 30 cm, and 45 cm below the ground surface.
Table 5.
The SMPM and volumetric water content (m3/m3) for the three garden locations, with the three variables, plant available water (PAW) (in cm), solar radiation (WH/m2), and slope, in the model.
Fig 6.
Classification of the three variables used in the SMPM and the SMPM results for the Coffey watershed.
(A) Reclassification of plant available water (PAW). (B) Reclassification of slope. (C) Reclassification of solar radiation (growing season). (D) Soil moisture proxy model results. The dot towards the center and top (also shown by arrow in A) represents the location of the Coffey garden.
Table 6.
Maximum and minimum values for SMPM variables in the Crow Canyon, Coffey, and Goodman watersheds.
PAW is in cm, slope is in percent rise, and solar radiation is in WH/m2.
Fig 7.
Settlement density in Goodman watershed.
Kernel density of 130 archaeological settlements in the Goodman watershed dating to AD 500–1285.
Table 7.
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for soil moisture class and archaeological site location.