Determining the spacing of ridge terraces on arable land in central and south-western Poland

Abstract

Abstract The practice of many countries has shown that terraces can significantly prevent land degradation processes such as excessive soil erosion, landslides. Condition is good layout, proper construction, and then proper maintenance. Practical application in many countries showed that terraces can significantly prevent processes leading to the degradation of land, such as the excessive erosion of soils and landslides. The requirement for this is well-planned, adequate construction, and later – proper conservation. In Poland this is a little popular method. In the article, the dorsal spacing terraces were calculated for two catchments – in the central and south-western parts of Poland. Meteorological and soil data were used for Puczniew station (Ner catchment) and Boleścin station (Mielnica catchment). Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was performed to assess the compatibility of a given feature with a normal distribution, then the distribution of the probability distribution was developed. For probability 1, 50 and 90% the spacing of terraces was calculated using Ramser and Morgan method. The results obtained were combined with the results from the USLE model. Hydraulic methods have shown greater spacing for the Mielnica catchment (loess soils) compared to the Ner basin (clay loam). For the USLE model, the larger spacing was calculated for the Ner basin. From the practical application to the acceptance of land user will be the maximum distance calculated by different methods. The highest terrace spacing values were obtained using the Morgan method for the Mielnica catchment, for the Ner catchment model USLE.