Abstract
Soil erosion is a global problem that will become worse as a result of climate change. While many parts of the world are speculating about the effect of increased rainfall intensity and frequency on soil erosion, Taiwan’s mountainous areas are already facing the power of rainfall erosivity more than six times the global average. To improve the modeling ability of extreme rainfall conditions on highly rugged terrains, we use two analysis units to simulate soil erosion at the Shihmen reservoir watershed in northern Taiwan. The first one is the grid cell method, which divides the study area into 10 m by 10 m grid cells. The second one is the slope unit method, which divides the study area using natural breaks in landform. We compared the modeling results with field measurements of erosion pins. To our surprise, the grid cell method is much more accurate in predicting soil erosion than the slope unit method, although the slope unit method resembles the real terrains much better than the grid cell method. The average erosion pin measurement is 6.5 mm in the Shihmen reservoir watershed, which is equivalent to 90.6 t ha−1 yr−1 of soil erosion.
Highlights
Soil erosion is the detachment of soil particles occurring in a landscape
The soil erosion model that we built is based on the digital elevation model (DEM) acquired by the Central Geological Survey (CGS) of Taiwan in 2013 with airborne LiDAR
Results is first the first time that a slopeunit-based unit-based approach approach isisapplied to to soilsoil erosion modeling in thein the. This This is the time that a slope applied erosion modeling. This is the first time that a slope unit-based approach is applied to soil erosion modeling in the Shihmen reservoir watershed
Summary
Water erosion is a much more critical process that produces enormous sediments in Taiwan’s watersheds. There are many factors that contribute to the high soil erosion rate of Taiwan. Not just in Taiwan, the concern of soil erosion has been evident in many published studies in different parts. In order to be prepared for the possible global increase in soil erosion, studying existing high soil erosion areas such as Taiwan’s watersheds may provide insights into a preventive measure against a massive increase of global soil loss. The results will be compared with the measurement of erosion pins in different sub-watersheds. The goals are to examine the difference between a grid cell analysis and an analysis based on natural land boundaries (slope units), and to determine which is more accurate in predicting erosion pin measurements
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