Relationship between soil erodibility by concentrated flow and shear strength of a Haplic Acrisol with a cationic polyelectrolyte

Abstract

To clarify the relationship between rill erodibility in an excess shear stress model for concentrated flow erosion and soil particle–particle interactions, we examined the rill erodibility and aggregation-dispersion behavior of Shimajiri Maaji soil, classified as a Haplic Acrisol, with different amounts of cationic polyelectrolyte poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC). The effect of particle–particle interaction on rill erodibility was determined by performing shear strength measurements and rill erosion experiments as a function of the PDADMAC dose without changing other soil conditions. Moreover, the mechanisms of particle–particle interactions were examined by comparing the electrophoretic mobility (EPM) with the transmission of the supernatant of the soil suspension and soil shear strength. The EPM and transmission showed that the Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek (DLVO) interaction governed the aggregation-dispersion behavior. At the same time, the shear strength monotonically increased with increasing PDADMAC dose, even when charge reversal and electric double layer (EDL) repulsion occurred. This result suggests that the shear strength is sensitive not only to the EDL interaction but also to the interactions, the so-called non-DLVO forces, such as bridging interaction. The difference between transmission and shear strength should be due to the difference in the characteristic length because the transmission is attributed to the collision/approaching process between particles, whereas the shear strength is attributed to the broken/retracting process of particle–particle contact. Rill erodibility decreased with increasing shear strength. Furthermore, our quantitative analysis demonstrated that rill erodibility can be represented by a linear function of shear strength. These results clearly show that a high attractive force between soil particles results in low rill erodibility. The strong particle–particle attraction protects soil particles from peeling off by increasing the shear stress of the flowing water. Our study suggests that shear strength measurement can be used to quickly estimate the effect of soil conditioners on rill erodibility in the field.