Assuring access to fresh water is one of the biggest challenges
faced by governments, urban planners, and development specialists in the 21st century (see e.g.,Schiermeier, 2008). Although there
is a popular perception that in a seasonal climate, tropical forest
soils retain water that is slowly released in streams during the dry
season (the “sponge” effect), empirical support is limited and it
remains controversial (Malmer et al., 2010). One important parameter for gauging the sponge effect is infiltration – the rate at which
water can be absorbed by the soil matrix. Hassler et al. (2011)
measured infiltration across a young secondary forest chronosequence in rural Panama where forest established on cattle pasture.
These authors found that infiltration can return to old secondary
or mature forest rates in a decade; however, the depth at which
a difference was detected was very shallow