MFKP_wiki

Abstract

Knowledge of soil erodibility following wildfire is of crucial importance for prioritisation of post-fire restoration practices for soil erosion mitigation. The present work therefore aims to determine the effect of wildfire on soil erodibility for common woodlands in Galicia, NW Spain. This is done by comparing selected topsoil properties of 28 pairs of recently wildfire-burned and neighbouring unburned sites on different geologic substrates. The soil properties were selected for their supposed importance in erodibility, and include aggregate size distribution and water ...

Abstract

Accurate assessment of erosion rates remains an elusive problem because soil loss is strongly nonunique with respect to the main drivers. In addressing the mechanistic causes of erosion responses, we discriminate between macroscale effects of external factors—long studied and referred to as “geomorphic external variability”, and microscale effects, introduced as “geomorphic internal variability.” The latter source of erosion variations represents the knowledge gap, an overlooked but vital element of geomorphic response, significantly impacting the low predictability skill of deterministic models at ...

Abstract

Surface soil erosion modelling has benefited and continues to benefit from the progress in information technology area and statistical and mathematical processing of spatial data. In Romania, quantitative studies concerning soil erosion have a tradition of over 70 years, beginning with the establishment of experimental runoff plots. An important step in the history of soil erosion research in Romania is the adaptation of the universal soil loss equation (USLE) to the specific environmental and anthropogenic conditions form our country (ROMSEM). This ...

Abstract

[Excerpt: Introduction] Wildland fire can have profound effects on the hydrologic response of a watershed. Consumption of the rainfall-intercepting canopy and of the soil-mantling litter and duff, intensive drying of the soil, combustion of soil-binding organic matter, and the enhancement or formation of water-repellent soils can change the infiltration characteristics and erodibility of the soil, leading to decreased rainfall infiltration, subsequent significantly increased overland flow and runoff in channels, and movement of soil (e.g., Swanson, 1981; Spittler, 1995; Doerr et al., 2000; Martin and Moody, 2001; ...

Abstract

Soil is a valuable, non-renewable resource that offers a multitude of ecosystems goods and services. At geological time-scales there is a balance between erosion and soil formation, but in many areas of the world today there is an imbalance with respect to soil loss and its subsequent deposition, principally caused by anthropogenic activity and climate change. Detailed methods regarding soil erosion dynamics are growingly available at local and catchment scale. The integrated assessment of natural hazards often require wider scales to ...

References

1. Angeli, L., Bottai, L., Costantini, R., Ferrari, R., Innocenti, L., and Siciliano, G.: Valutazione del rischio erosione: Applicazioni del modello RUSLE, LaMMA - CRES, Internal Report No. RI07-04, 2004.
2. Bazzoffi P.: Erosione del Suolo e Sviluppo Rurale: Fondamenti e manualistica per la valutazione agro ambientale, Edagricole, Bologna, 2007.
3. Beasley, D. B., Huggins, L. F., and Monke, E. J.: ANSWERS a model for watershed planning, T. ASABE, 23(4), 938–944, 1980.

Abstract

Soil erodibility data, calculated using measured soil loss from standard runoff plots, collected over at least one year and applying the standard requirements for calculating the soil erodibility factor (K) of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), have been analysed to investigate whether climate affects the susceptibility of soils to water erosion. In total, more than 300 K-values extracted from the literature have been analysed. Due to the limited availability of data related to the characteristics of the soil and the ...

Abstract

The analysis of global soil erodibility data by Salvador Sanchis et al. (2008) showed that there is a significant climate effect on soil erodibility which allows for a split of the data into two subsets, one for prevailing cool conditions and another for prevailing warm conditions (defined using the Köppen climate classification). Despite the recognition of this new dichotomous variable, prediction of soil erodibility values remained very poor. This paper presents a new technique for dealing with such a variability by ...

Abstract

This study examined the variation in soil erodibility along hillslopes in a Prairie landscape. The soil loss produced by simulated rainfall on undisturbed soils was used as an index of relative soil erodibility. Relative erodibility, and several soil properties, were measured at the summit, shoulder, midslope footslope and toeslope of 11 slope transects in an area of cultivated grassland soils on hummocky glacial till. The variation of erodibility with slope position was statistically significant, and slope position explained about 40 per ...

Abstract

The most suitable erodibility index for tropical soils has not been determined. This study was therefore carried out with 10 selected Trinidad soils to compare three erodibility indices previously used with soils in different parts of the world. The erodibility of the soils was determined by the USDA Erodibility Nomograph, the Australian Erodibility Index, and the Modified Raindrop Technique and their suitability evaluated by comparison with the erodibility measured directly on four of the 10 soil types in the field. The USDA ...

Abstract

Soil erodibility (the K factor in the Universal Soil Loss Equation, USLE) is an important index to measure soil susceptibility to water erosion, and an essential parameter needed for soil erosion prediction. To evaluate the appropriateness of the nomograph and other methods for estimating the K factor for the USLE and to develop a relationship for soil erodibility estimation for Chinese soils, a set of soil erodibility values was calculated using soil loss data from natural runoff plots at 13 sites ...

Abstract

The K factor of the Universal Soil Loss Equation is the most important measure of soil erodibility that was adopted in many erosion models. The K factor can be estimated from simple soil properties by a nomograph. Later, the classical K factor equation was published to assist the calculation of K. This equation, however, does not fully agree with the nomograph, which still has to be used in these deviating cases. Here we show for a large soil data set from ...

Abstract

The objectives of this paper are to discuss expectations for the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) accuracy, to review published studies related to WEPP goodness of fit, and to evaluate these in the context of expectations for WEPP's goodness of fit. WEPP model erosion predictions have been compared in numerous studies to observed values for soil loss and sediment delivery from cropland plots, forest roads, irrigated lands and small watersheds. A number of different techniques for evaluating WEPP have been used, ...