Search results for "soil"

Validating erosion rate estimates provided by caesium-137 measurements for two small forested catchments in Calabria, southern Italy

2003

Increasing concern for problems of soil degradation and the off-site impacts of accelerated erosion has generated a need for improved methods of estimating rates and patterns of soil erosion by water. The use of environmental radionuclides, particularly 137 Cs, to estimate erosion rates has attracted increased attention and the approach has been shown to possess several important advantages. However, the use of 137 Cs measurements to estimate erosion rates introduces one important uncertainty, namely, the need to employ a conversion model or relationship to convert the measured reduction in the 137 Cs inventory to an estimate of the erosion rate. There have been few attempts to validate the…

Exploring the influence of vegetation cover, sediment storage capacity and channel dimensions on stone check dam conditions and effectiveness in a la…

2018

Abstract Check dams are widely used for soil conservation at the watershed scale. When structurally sound, these engineering control works retain sediment as planned. However, there is limited information describing the influence of site characteristics on post-construction condition including structural stability and sediment retention capacity. More specifically, the effects of channel morphology, check dam geometry and vegetation characteristics as potentially influencing factors on sediment retention capacity at the watershed level are poorly understood. Thus, an investigation applying field and remotely sensed measurements, multi-regression models, redundancy and sensitivity analysis, …

Assessment of Gully Erosion Susceptibility Using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines and Accounting for Terrain Connectivity

2017

In this work, we assessed gully erosion susceptibility in two adjacent cultivated catchments of Sicily (Italy) by employing multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) and a set of geo-environmental variables. To explore the influence of hydrological connectivity on gully occurrence we measured the changes of performance occurred when adding one by one nine predictors reflecting terrain connectivity to a base model that included contributing area and slope gradient. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) were used to evaluate models performance. Gully predictive models were trained in both the catchments and submitted to internal (in the ca…

Analyzing long-term soil erosion in a ridge-shaped persimmon plantation in eastern Spain by means of ISUM measurements

2019

Abstract Graft unions of cultivated plants have been used as passive bio-indicators to assess long-term soil erosion rates. By taking complementary topographical measures in inter-row areas, soil erosion can be more accurately estimated as done with the Improved Stock Unearthing Method (ISUM) in vineyards. As vines are not the only plants that are grafted, ISUM could be also applied to other crops. Most fruit trees are planted in ridges and our objective was to test if ISUM could be applied in a ridge planted persimmon plantation. This update in the methodology will allow the scientific community to expand measurements that will contribute to assessing soil erosion processes in intensive an…

The role of the aquifer in soil CO2 degassing in volcanic peripheral areas: A case study of Stromboli Island (Italy)

2017

Abstract The peripheral area of Stromboli Island, Italy, named “Scari”, was continuously studied between January 2009 and December 2010. Data on soil CO 2 flux and the partial pressure of CO 2 (pCO 2 ) in equilibrium with the thermal aquifer linked to the magmatic system are presented. Soil CO 2 fluxes range from 20 to 370 g m − 2  d − 1 and have been strongly affected by soil temperature variations. Soil CO 2 flux data were filtered with respect to the soil temperature and the calculated values, called “residuals”, were considered to detect changes induced by the magmatic system. The pCO 2 values change in a wide range from 0.03 to 0.6 (atm), showing rapid variations. The results of this s…

Post-fire hydrological response and suspended sediment transport of a terraced Mediterranean catchment

2017

In July 2013, a wildfire severely affected the western part of the island of Mallorca (Spain). During the first three post-fire hydrological years, when the window of disturbance tends to be more open, the hydrological and sediment delivery processes and dynamics were assessed in a representative catchment intensively shaped by terracing that covered 37% of its surface area. A nested approach was applied with two gauging stations (covering 1.2 km2 and 4.8 km2) built in September 2013 that took continuous measurements of rainfall, water and sediment yield. Average Suspended Sediment Concentration (1,503 mg l-1) and the maximum peak (33,618 mg l-1) were two orders of magnitude higher than tho…

Spatial patterns of sediment connectivity in terraced lands: Anthropogenic controls of catchment sensitivity

2017

In recent decades the dynamics of global change in developed countries has led to significant alterations in the hydrological and sediment dynamics of terraced land. Agricultural terraces were built to control overland flow and prevent erosion, acting as buffers and barriers throughout the sediment cascading system. Their abandonment and degradation increase the sensitivity of the catchment, promoting the collapse of dry-stone walls and the reworking of stored sediment. In this study, a geomorphometric Index of Connectivity (IC) –derived from high-resolution LiDAR data (0.9 pt m-2, RMSE Q8). This spatial matching was related to feedback dynamics between structural and functional connectivit…

Morphological Similarity of Channels: From Linear Erosional Features (Rill, Gully) to Alpine Rivers

2017

Analysis of soil surface component patterns affecting runoff generation. An example of methods applied to Mediterranean hillslopes in Alicante (Spain)

2008

Spatial patterns of soil surface components (vegetation, rock fragments, crusts, bedrock outcrops, etc.) are a key factor determining hydrological functioning of hillslopes. A methodological approach to analyse the patterns of soil surface components at a detailed scale is proposed in this paper. The methods proposed are applied to two contrasting semi-arid Mediterranean hillslopes, and the influence of soil surface component patterns on the runoff response of the slopes was analysed. A soil surface components map was derived from a high resolution photo-mosaic obtained in the field by means of a digital camera. Rainfall simulation experimental data were used to characterise the hydrologica…

Distribution of soil organic carbon in Wadi Al-Thulaima, Saudi Arabia: A hyper-arid habitat altered by wastewater reuse

2018

The carbon cycle is being altered as a result of human-induced changes in the Earth's system. Therefore, ecosystems such as wetlands, authentic CO2 sinks, are becoming especially important. Little information exits on the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock for the middle east-countries man-made wetlands making wadis permanent with the outflow of wastewater treatment plants. This paper presents the vertical distribution of SOC content, soil bulk density (SBD) and SOC density in soil of vegetated and bare sites in Wadi Al-Thulaima, one of the artificial wetlands in central Saudi Arabia. The mean distribution of SBD in the vegetated and bare sites increased significantly with depth. Inversely, th…