Detachment of road surface soil by flowing water

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Abstract An agricultural watershed generally consists of two land use categories, farmland and the unpaved road or path networks with different traffic frequency and size. Road surfaces are quite different from farmland soil in physical properties, resulting in it's distinguish production transportation process. Hydraulic flume experiments were conducted with the flow discharges ranging from 1 to 5 L s− 1 and the slope gradients ranging from 8.8% to 46.6% to simulate the soil detachment process on a road surface and to develop tools in order to calculate detachment rates occurring on that road surfaces. The results illustrate that road surfaces behave characteristically in the runoff detachment and sediment delivery process due to the difference in the bulk density and functions of agricultural soils. The soil detachment rate is closely related to flow depth, slope gradient and other hydraulic parameters such as shear stress, stream power and unit stream power. Multiple non-linear regression analyses indicate that detachment rates for all roads can be accurately predicted by power functions of flow depth and slope gradient. According to the experimental results, stream power was suggested as an indicator to estimate soil detachment rate instead of shear stress in soil erosion models. However, considering the simplicity and availability, power function of flow depth and slope gradient is also recommended to predict detachment rate on the road surfaces.