0000000000454724
AUTHOR
G. V. Di Piazza
MANUAL SAMPLING AND TANK SIZE EFFECTS ON THE CALIBRATION CURVE OF PLOT SEDIMENT STORAGE TANKS
In many experimental soil erosion plots, runoff is collected and carried by a conveyance system to a sequence of storage tanks. If the soil loss is measured by collecting, after mixing, samples of the stored suspension, then a calibration curve between the actual mean concentration (C) and the measured concentration (Cm) in the storage tank occurs. The aim of this article was to evaluate experimentally the factors affecting the relationship between C and Cm. For a sandy loam soil, the replicated measurements of Cm (20 samples) for two values of the actual concentration (C = 5 and 25 g/L) showed that the variability of the measurements of Cm is low and confirmed the reliability of a calibrat…
Predicting unit plot soil loss in Sicily, south Italy
Predicting soil loss is necessary to establish soil conservation measures. Variability of soil and hydrological parameters complicates mathematical simulation of soil erosion processes. Methods for predicting unit plot soil loss in Sicily were developed by using 5 years of data from replicated plots. At first, the variability of the soil water content, runoff, and unit plot soil loss values collected at fixed dates or after an erosive event was investigated. The applicability of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was then tested. Finally, a method to predict event soil loss was developed. Measurement variability decreased as the mean increased above a threshold value but it was low als…