Search results for "forest"
showing 10 items of 3780 documents
Discussion of “Unsteady Stage-Discharge Relationships for Sharp-Crested Weirs” by Firouz Ghasemzadeh, Salah Kouchakzadeh, and Gilles Belaud
2021
I would like to thank the authors for writing this interesting article dealing with unsteady stage-discharge relationships for sharp-crested weirs. The operation of triangular and rectangular sharp-crested weirs in unsteady flow conditions was experimentally investigated. Results indicated the presence of looped rating curves, with transposition of the rising and falling limbs compared to that commonly observed in stream gauge ratings. The authors found that the deviation between steady and unsteady flow rates in the looped rating curves depends on the weir type and the hydrograph gradient (i.e., the temporal depth variation), especially when the latter changes rapidly. Finally, they propos…
A field assessment of the Simplified Falling Head technique to measure the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity
2012
Abstract The Simplified Falling Head (SFH) technique to measure field saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, Kfs, has received little testing or comparison with other techniques. Different experiments were carried out to i) determine the effect of ring size on the measured conductivity; ii) compare the SFH and Pressure Infiltrometer (PI) techniques in a clay loam soil; and iii) evaluate the approach used in the SFH methodology to estimate the α* parameter. Sampling a relatively large number of sites allowed to detect statistically significant relationships between the Kfs values obtained with rings differing in diameter (0.15 and 0.30 m, respectively). The ring size effect was substantial (…
Effect of plot size on measured soil loss for two Italian experimental sites
2011
The objective of this investigation was to determine empirically the plot width and length effects on runoff volume, Ve, soil loss, Ae, and sediment concentration, Ce, by using data collected, at the temporal scale of the erosive event, on bare plots differing in width (2 to 8 m) and length (11 to 22 m) for two Italian stations (Masse, Umbria; Sparacia, Sicily). Mean results differed by a maximum factor of 1.6 for Ve, 1.8 for Ae and 1.2 for Ce when plots differing in width were compared and by a maximum factor of 1.4 for Ve, 1.2 for Ae and 1.3 for Ce when comparison between plot lengths was conducted. Differences between two plot widths or two plot lengths were not statistically significant…
Analysis of soil loss data from plots of differing length for the Sparacia experimental area, Sicily, Italy
2010
Widely used models of the soil erosion process, such as the empirical universal soil loss equation (USLE) and revised USLE (RUSLE), suggest that soil loss, i.e. the mass of soil lost by water erosion per unit surface area, increases with slope length, λ, although contrasting experimental results may be found in the literature. Experiments were carried out at the Sparacia site, Sicily, to establish the influence of plot length on soil loss. This was tested using data characterised by a high number of replicated, bare plots of different lengths (0.25, 0.4, 1, 2, 5, 11, 22, 33 and 44 m), simultaneously operating in the 1999–2008 period. Event soil losses did not vary significantly with λ or ev…
Establishing a soil loss threshold for limiting rilling
2015
In this paper a frequency analysis of event soil loss measurements collected in the period 1999–2012 at the microplots and plots of the Sparacia Experimental Area in Sicily, southern Italy, was developed. The analysis was carried out using the annual maximum soil loss measurements normalized by the mean soil loss measured at a given temporal and spatial scale. The empirical frequency distribution of the normalized variable was well fitted by two Gumbel’s theoretical probability distributions discriminated by a value of the normalized variable equal to 2. This last value discriminates between the relatively low and frequent values of the normalized variable and the high and rare ones. The an…
Response to ‘comment on “predicting event soil loss from bare plots at two Italian sites”’
2014
In this paper, a response to the comment by Dr. Kinnell on “Predicting event soil loss from bare plots at two Italian sites”’ (Bagarello et al., Catena 109, 96–102, 2013) is provided.
Testing infiltration run effects on the estimated water transmission properties of a sandy-loam soil
2016
Abstract Testing factors influencing determination of soil water transmission properties by an infiltrometer method helps better interpretation of the collected data and allows the development of appropriate sampling strategies for the intended use of the data. These factors include the soil water content at the start of the experiment, the height from which water is poured onto the soil surface, and the duration of the infiltration run. A sandy-loam soil was sampled with the BEST (Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer parameters) procedure of soil hydraulic characterization and two heights of pouring of water (0.03 and 1.5 m) under three different initial soil water content, θ i (0.12 ≤ θ i …
Testing the BEST procedure to estimate the soil water retention curve
2012
The BEST (Beerkan Estimation of Soil Transfer parameters) procedure is attractive for simple soil hydraulic characterization but there is the need to test the reliability of the predictions. In this investigation, the BEST procedure to predict water retention of 199 Sicilian soils was evaluated. The BEST water retention model performed well (relative error, Er≤0.05) for approximately 80% of the soil samples. Low errors were obtained in soils with a high clay, cl, content (≥44%), whereas both high and low Er values were obtained in soils with a lower cl content. The BEST particle size distribution (PSD) model was accurate for 50% of the samples and the fitting accuracy increased with cl, wit…
SW—Soil and Water
2000
Abstract Recent research has directed attention to the properties of the eroded material because of its influence in deposition phenomena and in carrying capacity of pollutant materials. In this paper, the spatial distribution of the content of nitrogen, phosphorus and total organic carbon is firstly deduced using the measurements carried out in 129 soil samples well distributed over the Sicilian Sparacia Basin and a Kriging interpolation method. Then the load of each chemical was calculated at morphological unit and basin scale using the above-mentioned spatial distributions and sediment yield values calculated by a parametric approach such as the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSL…
Evaluation of disruption of sediment connectivity and herbicide transport across a slope by grass strips using a magnetic iron oxide tracer
2018
Abstract The use of cover crops has been prescribed as a mitigation measure for offsite contamination, as they reduce sediment and agrochemical loads, thus reducing the hydrological connectivity of the land. However, there is the need to quantify its effectiveness for specific agrochemicals in broader range of conditions, to validate management for its safe environmental use. The objectives of the present study were: (1) to explore the use of simulated rainfall and magnetic iron oxide to understand the impact of vegetation strips on runoff and soil losses at the plot scale and, (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of vegetation strips in buffering sediment and herbicides coming from bare soil …