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METHODS FOR EVALUATING SOIL LOSS DUE TO SURFACE RUNOFF ON SLOPES

Erika Beilicci, Adia Grozav, Robert Beilicci

Abstract

Soil erosion is a naturally occurring process on all land. The agents causing soil erosion are water (especially on sloping land) and wind (especially on horizontally land), each contributing a significant amount of soil loss each year. These factors are responsible for about 84% of the global extent of degraded land, making excessive erosion one of the most significant environmental problems worldwide. Soil erosion is a slow process that continues relatively unobserved, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing a serious loss of topsoil, nutrient-rich upper soil layers. Human activities have increased by 10пїЅ40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. Intensive agriculture and inadequate agricultural techniques, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are the most significant human activities which increase soil erosion rate. The loss of soil from farmland reduces crop production potential, determine a lower surface water quality (which determine a high cost for treatment for drinking), damage drainage networks and compromise some hydrotechnical arrangements (reservoirs silting, worsening conditions for navigation, reduce transit capacity of floods in river beds). Monitoring, evaluation and modeling of soil erosion processes help for better understand the causes of soil erosion, make forecast of erosion under a range of possible conditions, and plan the implementation of control, preventative and restorative measures for soil erosion reduction. Because the erosion process is very complex, for understanding the mechanisms of production and development of evaluation methods is necessary a multidisciplinary approach: climatology, hydrology, geology, soil science, agriculture, chemistry, physics etc. Many erosion models are non-linear, which makes them difficult to work with numerically, and makes it difficult or impossible to scale up to making predictions about large areas from data collected by sampling smaller plots. This paper analyzes some methods of soil loss evaluation: Wischmeier, Universal Soil Loss Equation, Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation, Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation and Water Erosion Prediction Project. A case study compares the results obtained by applying several methods of soil loss evaluation on a slope and in the paper will be indicate several possible measures for soil erosion control.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2017/32/s13.048

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