Effects Of Rainfall Characteristics Research Articles

Preliminary study on the effect of rainfall characteristics and soil strength on the potential for shallow landslides using a simplified physically based model ～A case study for Miyagawa upper river basin in Mie prefecture～

Preliminary study on the effect of rainfall characteristics and soil strength on the potential for shallow landslides using a simplified physically based model ～A case study for Miyagawa upper river basin in Mie prefecture～

Effects of rainfall characteristics on infiltration and redistribution patterns in revegetation-stabilized desert ecosystems

Summary Rainfall, the dominant source of water replenishment in the semi-arid sand dune area of north-western China, plays an important role in sustaining the desert ecosystem. An experiment to measure water balance associated with infiltration events was conducted on the re-vegetated sand dunes in the Tengger Desert, north-western China. The redistribution of infiltrated moisture in the course of percolation, root extraction, and evapotranspiration pathways was investigated for a period of 45 days during the growing season. Time domain reflectometry probes were inserted horizontally at 12 different depths below the ground surface in the Caragana korshinskii dwarf-shrub community to record volumetric soil moisture at hourly intervals. Rainfall events were sporadic with widely different intensities during the period of the experiment. The presence of vegetation markedly influenced the infiltration and redistribution patterns on the stabilized sand dunes. Infiltration rates varied greatly with individual rainfall quantity and antecedent soil moisture, with drier soil profile facilitating infiltration. The relationship between infiltration rate and rainfall intensity was linear, with infiltration rate at 80% the magnitude of rainfall intensity. Contrasts between the infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration varied with the feature of rainfall events of the vegetation-stabilized desert soil and the un-vegetated bare desert soil indicate that the measured precipitation alone is insufficient to explain the effective rainfall of the studied regions. At rainfall amount

Runoff and peak flow responses to timber harvest and forest age in southern Chile

Runoff and peak flows in three experimental catchments with different forest conditions were analysed in a rainy temperate climate in southern Chile. The hydrological effects of clearcutting a Pinus radiata plantation covering 79·4% of the La Reina catchment were studied by analysing runoff and peak flows in the pre- and post-harvesting periods. Mean annual runoff increased 110% after timber harvesting. Clearcutting generated a 32% mean increase in peak flows. Peak flow and runoff were examined in two adjacent catchments with different forest conditions. The older plantation in Los Ulmos 1 increasingly consumed more water than the younger plantation established at Los Ulmos 2, whereas differences in peak flows between these two catchments were not significant. Runoff and peak flows comparisons not only reflected changes in forest cover, but also the effect of rainfall characteristics during the study periods and the basins' morphologies. Comparisons between pre- and post-harvesting peak discharges must be undertaken with caution, because a previous analysis at La Reina using a partial set of data overestimated changes in peak flows after timber harvesting. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Soil erosion on Alfisols in Western Nigeria: III. Effects of rainfall characteristics

The applicability of various erosivity indices was tested for runoff and soil loss from plowed bare-fallow field runoff plots of 25 × 4 m established on an Alfisol with natural slopes of 1, 5, 10 and 15%. The correlation coefficients of percent runoff from individual rainstorms with various indices such as kinetic energy ( E), EI 30, KE > 1, rainfall amount ( A), maximum intensity ( I m), and AI m, were generally low. The correlation coefficients of all these indices with soil loss per storm were high and did not differ significantly from one another. The use of an empirical relation (kinetic energy = 916 + 331 log 10, I is in inches/h) may underestimate the kinetic energy of tropical rainstorms. The kinetic energy of tropical rainstorms may be significantly influenced by other factors such as wind velocity, drop size distribution and high rainfall intensity. The index AI m has the advantage of simplicity of computation, and it incorporates one of the most important factors, peak intensity ( I m). Further improvements can be made in this index by incorporating a factor which accounts for the kinetic energy of a rainstorm. In the meantime, the index, AI m, may be used to prepare an “iso-erodant” map, i.e. places with equal erosion potential. There also exists a linear correlation between rainfall amount per storm and AI m. Such a relationship may be useful in estimating AI m for regions where data from recording rain gauges are not available.

The Effect of Rainfall Characteristics on Runoff anb Soil Erosion

The Effect of Rainfall Characteristics on Runoff anb Soil Erosion