Effects of Rainfall Intensity and Slope Gradient on Runoff and Soil Moisture Content on Different Growing Stages of Spring Maize

Abstract

The rainfall-runoff process (RRP) is an important part of hydrologic process. There is an effective measure to study RRP through artificial rainfall simulation. This paper describes a study on three growing stages (jointing stage, tasseling stage, and mature stage) of spring maize in which simulated rainfall events were used to study the effects of various factors (rainfall intensity and slope gradient) on the RRP. The RRP was tested with three different rainfall intensities (0.67, 1.00, and 1.67 mm/min) and subjected to three different slopes (5°, 15°, and 20°) so as to study RRP characteristics in semiarid regions. Regression analysis was used to study the results of this test. The following key results were obtained: (1) With the increase in rainfall intensity and slope, the increasing relationship with rainfall duration, overland flow, and cumulative runoff, respectively, complied with logarithmic and quadratic functions before reaching stable runoff in each growing stage of spring maize; (2) The runoff coefficient increased with the increase in rainfall intensity and slope in each growing stages of spring maize. The relationship between runoff coefficient, slope, rainfall intensity, rainfall duration, antecedent soil moisture, and vegetation coverage was multivariate and nonlinear; (3) The runoff lag time decreased with the increase in rainfall intensity and slope within the same growing stage. In addition, the relationship between runoff lag time, slope, rainfall intensity, antecedent soil moisture, and vegetation coverage could also be expressed by a multivariate nonlinear equation; (4) The descent rate of soil infiltration rate curve increased with the increased rainfall intensity and slope in the same growing stage. Furthermore, by comparing the Kostiakov, Horton, and Philip models, it was found that the Horton infiltration model was the best for estimating soil infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration under the condition of test.