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Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (AJAD) - Call for papers!

Predicting Soil Erosion Using A Physical Model

(Indonesia), Master of Science in Soil Science (Universiti Pertanian Malaysia)

Thesis Abstract:

An experiment was conducted using rainulator and soil trough to critically study the process of soil erosion and to validate the physical model of predicting soil erosion proposed by Rose, Sander, and Barry (1983).

the treatments involved two soil types, Luisiana clay (Orthoxic Tropudult) and Lipa clay load (typic Tropudalf); three levels of rainfall intensity (7.85. 10.95, and 12.95 cm/hr.); three levels of slope steepness (3, 8, and 15%); and five levels of mulch cover (0, 25, 50, 75, and 100% cover).

Surface water flux per unit strip width of plot (q), sediment concentration (C), and sediment flux per unit strip width of plot (qs) increased with rainfall intensity and slope but greatly decreased as the percentage cover of mulch increased. The sediment concentration that resulted from a given rainfall intensity and slope was higher in Lipa than in Luisiana soil series.

On bare soil surfaces of Lipa and Luisiana series, the efficiency of entrainment (n) increased with rainfall intensity and slope while it decreased exponentially as the percentage of mulch cover increased.

The physical model yielded good prediction estimates of sediment concentration. In both soils, predicted and observed sediment concentrations generated from different combinations of rainfall intensity and mulch cover gave about 1:1 relationship with correlation coefficients (r) of not less than 0.98.