Search results for "erosion"
showing 10 items of 637 documents
Soil water erosion on road embankments in eastern Spain.
2007
Abstract Road embankments erosion is a serious problem in Spain. By means of simulated rainfall experiments (45 mm h − 1 during one hour on 0.41 m 2 plots) soil and water losses were measured on five road embankments located on the SW of the Valencia province, Spain. The bare road embankments, still under construction, contributed with 30 times more soil erosion than the vegetated ones. The measurements here presented demonstrate that road embankments are an important source of sediments, especially during the construction works, and it is recommended that restoration works should be undertaken after the road construction to reduce sediment removal, protect the road and avoid traffic accide…
Soil erosion after land abandonment in a semiarid environment of southeastern Spain
1997
Different soil units were selected in southeastern Spain to investigate the effects of land abandonment on soil erosion under semiarid conditions. The study sites selected were a cultivated field (bare), a 3‐yr‐abandoned field (herbs), a 10‐yr‐abandoned field (Artemisia herba‐alba Asso.), and two soil units covered with semi‐native (Stipa tena‐cissima L) and native (Pinus halepensis Miller) vegetation. Simulated rainfall measurements showed that the erosion and runoff increased after the land abandonment, but later erosion decreased owing to the influence of increasing vegetation. Runoff discharge (35%) and the erosion rates (334 g m2 h‐1) were high in the 3‐yr‐abandoned land in comparison …
Properties and erosional response of soils in a degraded ecosystem in Crete (Greece)
2013
To study desertification processes relating to soil erosion, a climatological and altitudinal gradient from south to north was selected in Crete (Greece) and four locations were selected along the gradient. At the locations precipitation ranged from 1400 mm/year at the highest location to 400 mm/year at the lowest. All locations are affected by the actual land use: intensive grazing, small controlled fires, and abandoned agricultural terraces. Representative soil profiles were described in the field and analyzed in the laboratory, and rainfall simulation experiments in the field measured soil erosion over different soil surfaces and land uses. Data on physical and chemical properties were o…
Soil erosion and hydrology of the western Mediterranean badlands throughout rainfall simulation experiments: A review
2013
Abstract Rainfall simulation experiments are widely used in geomorphological research in badland areas. This technique contributed significantly to our understanding of badland geomorphology in the Mediterranean belt. Due to the different types of simulated rainfall applied and the variable size of the plots a review of the State-of-the-Art is necessary. This study confirmed that rainfall simulations are well suited to (i) analyse runoff-infiltration processes and sediment detachment within badlands, and (ii) to establish the factors determining the hydrological and erosion response at interrill scale in badland areas. The hydrological response of badlands is characterized by rapid response…
Influence of vegetation recovery on soil hydrology and erodibility following fire: an 11-year investigation
2005
The present study investigates long-term changes in soil hydrological properties and erodibility during the regrowth of different types and densities of vegetation following a severe wildfire in the Serra Grossa Range, eastern Spain. Twelve plots of similar slope and soil characteristics, naturally recolonized by four different plant species (trees, herbs, shrubs and dwarf shrubs) were examined using rainfall simulations during an 11-year period. The mean erosion rate was 80 g m−2 h−1, 6 months after the fire under wet-winter conditions, declining to 30 g m−2 h−1 in the following summer and reaching <10 g m−2 h−1 after 2 years. Considerable variation under the different vegetation types …
The effect of ash and needle cover on surface runoff and erosion in the immediate post-fire period
2008
Abstract Hillslopes are thought to be most susceptible to enhanced surface runoff and erosion immediately following wildfire due to removal of protective vegetation and litter cover, and in many cases a fire-induced reduction in soil wettability. This enhanced susceptibility declines as vegetation and litter layer recover. For logistical reasons, however, few studies have been able to examine the responses of burnt terrain immediately following burning and little is therefore known about the effect of the wettable ash layer that often covers the ground until it is redistributed or removed by wind or water erosion. Here we quantify the effects of ash and needle cast ground cover on surface r…
Shrubland as a soil and water conservation agent in Mediterranean-type ecosystems
2015
John Thornes found that shrubland was a key factor in the control of soil erosion on Mediterranean hillsides. His research inspired many scientists to investigate the impact of shrubland changes and management in semi-arid ecosystems. An example of Professor Thornes’ scientific influence is the experiment carried out on the El Teularet–Sierra de Enguera experimental station since 2003 which showed erosion rates on a 30-year-old abandoned orchard with dense vegetation cover of Ulex parviflorus and Cistus albidus and a 20-year-old fire-affected maquia with Quercus coccifera, Pistacia lentiscus and Juniperus oxycedrus. The measurements demonstrated that the shrubs help create more stable soil …
Comparing theoretically supported rainfall-runoff erosivity factors at the Sparacia (South Italy) experimental site
2018
Interpreting rainfall‐runoff erosivity by a process‐oriented scheme allows to conjugate the physical approach to soil loss estimate with the empirical one. Including the effect of runoff in the model permits to distinguish between detachment and transport in the soil erosion process. In this paper, at first, a general definition of the rainfall‐runoff erosivity factor REFe including the power of both event runoff coefficient QR and event rainfall erosivity index EI30 of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is proposed. The REFe factor is applicable to all USLE‐based models (USLE, Modified USLE [USLE‐M] and Modified USLE‐M [USLE‐MM]) and it allows to distinguish between purely empirical m…
The influence of geomorphological position and vegetation cover on the erosional and hydrological processes on a Mediterranean hillslope
1998
Soil erosion and runoff rates are assumed to be highly dependent on slope position. However, little knowledge exists about the hydrogeomorphological processes at the pedon scale that support this idea. In order to assess the hydrological and erosional behaviour of soils at different slope positions, simulated rainfall experiments (55 mm was applied during one hour) were carried out on a south-facing slope with underlying limestone in south-east Spain. In the mean terms, the erosion rates (9 g m2 hr−1) and the runoff coefficients (12%) were very low at the scale of measurement (0·25 m2). The slope position does not affect erosion rates when the measurements are carried out under extreme dry …
Statistical distribution of soil loss and sediment yield at Sparacia experimental area, Sicily
2010
Abstract An analysis of the statistical distribution of event soil loss was carried out using the data collected in the period 1999–2008 at the microplots and plots of the Sparacia experimental area (Sicily, Italy). For a given microplot size, the analysis allowed to establish that the soil loss frequency distribution was skewed. Using the soil loss normalized by the event mean value, the analysis also showed that the frequency distributions corresponding to different microplot and plot sizes were overlapping, i.e. all distributions were extracted by the same statistical population. The developed analysis allowed to suggest that the soil loss of a given return period can be estimated using …