Abstract
In order to discuss the effect of rainfall patterns and land use types on soil erosion, the experiment is carried out under natural rainfall events on different kinds of runoff plots in Zhangjiachong watershed. Based on the observed data of 44 individual rainfall events including moderate, heavy and storm rainfall, the differences of erosion modulus among hedgerows plots, terrace plots, and slope plots under different rainfall patterns are analyzed. And the effects of hedgerow and terrace patterns on control of soil loss are revealed by RUSLE. Wilcoxon signed rank test is applied to analyze the significant difference of erosion modulus in different plots and the coefficient of variation is used to compare the characteristics of erosion modulus under different rainfall patterns. The results show that the soil erosion modulus of earth banked terrace has the highest value and the lowest soil erosion modulus occurs in the slope land with hedgerows. The coefficients of variation for soil erosion modulus under heavy and storm rainfall are larger than that of moderate rainfall. Hedgerow pattern can effectively control soil erosion under moderate and heavy rainfall while the effect of hedgerow is considerably weakened under storm rainfall. Earth banked terraces own the highest erosion modulus followed by slope land and stone dike terraces.
Highlights
In order to discuss the effect of rainfall patterns and land use types on soil erosion, the experiment is carried out under natural rainfall events on different kinds of runoff plots in Zhangjiachong watershed
The experiment is carried out under natural rainfall events on different kinds of runoff plots in Zhangjiachong watershed to discuss the effect of rainfall patterns and land use types on soil erosion in the Three Gorges Region in China
It can be seen that the characteristics of these rainfall events differ considerably: storm rainfall events have the highest mean values of the amount of rainfall and maximum 24-h rainfall followed by heavy rainfall events and moderate rainfall events, whereas the duration of rainfall exhibits the opposite trend
Summary
In order to discuss the effect of rainfall patterns and land use types on soil erosion, the experiment is carried out under natural rainfall events on different kinds of runoff plots in Zhangjiachong watershed. Moderate rainfall with the characteristics of low intensity and long duration often causes interflow, while surface runoff is the main mode of runoff under storm rainfall event, which may damage the structure of soil and cause serious soil loss. The time distribution of storm and rainfall pattern with high intensity, short duration and high frequency are the main reasons for runoff and sediment generation[11]. These rainfall patterns do not always cause runoff and transport from the place of disaggregation to other places in the landscape. The reduction of slope gradient produced by hedgerows can gradually make natural terraces on slope lands, which in turn significantly decrease runoff and soil erosion[19]
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