Abstract
ABSTRACT Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in many parts of the world and represents a serious problem for sustainable agriculture and the environment, with direct and indirect impacts on soil quality and fertility. This study aimed to use the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model to estimate rill erosion and determine soil physical and hydraulic properties, which are essential to investigate its performance. To this end, an experiment was carried out in the Exu Creek watershed, in Serra Talhada, semi -arid region of Pernambuco State (Brazil), under increasing flow rates: T1: 5.87 L min-1; T2: 12.10 L min-1; T3: 20.33 L min1; and T4: 27.57 L min-1. Liquid and solid discharges were sampled for determination and characterization of hydraulic parameters in preformed rill flows. Reynolds numbers between 2,019 and 6,929 and Froude numbers below 1 found in this study attest to occurrence of erosive rills. Soil losses due to rill erosion increased as flow rates increased. Rill erodibility was 0.0011 kg N-1 s-1, and critical shear stress (tc) was 1.91 Pa, collapsing rill sidewalls and increasing local uplift, wet perimeter, and rill hydraulic radius.
Highlights
Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in many parts of the world (EEKHOUT; VENTE, 2019)
This study aimed to evaluate the use of Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model to quantify erosion of rills and to evaluate physical and hydraulic relationships, which are essential to verify the performance of this model
Liquid discharges were statistically similar for flow rates of 5.87 and 12.10 L min-1, whereas larger flow rates of 20.33 and 27.57 L min-1 showed a significant difference for this parameter
Summary
Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in many parts of the world (EEKHOUT; VENTE, 2019). Rill erosion is often observed on slopes under cropped areas and contributes significantly to sediment deposition into rivers in a watershed. This type of erosion constitutes a series of small channels with a depth of around 0.30 m, being a transition between interrill and gully erosions. According to Heras et al (2011), drainage by set of rills develops from flow concentration and connectivity of flows from these channels. In this context, mathematicians have been arousing great interest in rill erosion network modelling (YAN et al, 2015)
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