| Research Articles |
|
|
|
|
| Soil surface roughness change and its effect on runoff and erosion on the Loess Plateau of China |
| LongShan ZHAO, XinLan LIANG, FaQi WU* |
| College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China |
|
|
|
Abstract As an important parameter in the soil erosion model, soil surface roughness (SSR) is used to quantitatively describe the micro-relief on agricultural land. SSR has been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically; however, no studies have focused on understanding SSR on the Loess Plateau of China. This study investigated changes in SSR for three different tillage practices on the Loess Plateau of China and the effects of SSR on runoff and erosion yield during simulated rainfall. The tillage practices used were zero tillage (ZT), shallow hoeing (SH) and contour ploughing (CP). Two rainfall intensities were applied, and three stages of water erosion processes (splash erosion (I), sheet erosion (II) and rill erosion (III)) were analyzed for each rainfall intensity. The chain method was used to measure changes in SSR both initially and after each stage of rainfall. A splash board was used to measure the splash erosion at stage I. Runoff and sediment data were collected continuously at 2-min intervals during rainfall erosion stages II and III. We found that SSR of the tilled surfaces ranged from 1.0% to 21.9% under the three tillage practices, and the order of the initial SSR for the three treatments was ZT<SH<CP. For the ZT treatment, SSR increased slightly from stage I to III, whereas for the SH and CP treatments, SSR decreased by 44.5% and 61.5% after the three water erosion stages, respectively, and the greatest reduction in SSR occurred in stage I. Regression analysis showed that the changes in SSR with increasing cumulative rainfall could be described by a power function (R2>0.49) for the ZT, SH and CP treatments. The runoff initiation time was longer in the SH and CP treatments than in the ZT treatment. There were no significant differences in the total runoff yields among the ZT, SH and CP treatments. Sediment loss was significantly smaller (P<0.05) in the SH and CP treatments than in the ZT treatment.
|
|
Received: 01 May 2013
Published: 12 August 2014
|
| Fund: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41271288, 41371273). We thank researchers in the State Key Laboratory of Dryland Agriculture and Soil Erosion on the Loess Plateau for their valuable assistance. |
|
Corresponding Authors:
|
|
|
| Abrahams A D, Parsons A J. 1990. Determining the mean depth of overland flow in field studies of flow hydraulics. Water Resources Research, 26(3): 501–503.Allmaras R R, Burwell R E, Larson W E, et al. 1966. Total porosity and random roughness of the inter-row zone as influenced by tillage. USDA Conservation Research Report, No. 7: 1–14.Darboux F, Davy P, Gascuel-Odoux C, et al. 2001. Evolution of soil surface roughness and flow path connectivity in overland flow experiments. Catena, 46(2–3): 125–139.Darboux F, Gascuel-Odoux C, Davy P. 2002. Effects of surface water storage by soil roughness on overland-flow generation. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 27(3): 223–233.Darboux F, Huang C H. 2005. Does soil surface roughness increase or decrease water and particle transfers?. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 69(3): 748–756.De Lima J L M P. 1989. Raindrop splash anisotropy: slope, wind and overland flow veolocity effects. Soil Technology, 2(1): 71–78.Dexter A R. 1977. Effect of rainfall on the surface micro-relief of tilled soil. Journal of Terramechanics, 14(1): 11–22.De Oro L A, Buschiazzo D E. 2011. Degradation of the soil surface roughness by rainfall in two loess soils. Geoderma, 164(1–2): 46–53.Fohrer N, Berkenhagen J, Hecker J M, et al. 1999. Changing soil and surface conditions during rainfall single rainstorm/subsequent rainstorms. Catena, 37(3–4): 355–375.Freebairn D M, Gupta S C, Onstad C A, et al. 1989. Antecedent rainfall and tillage effects upon infiltration. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 53(4): 1183–1189.García Moreno R, Díaz Álvarez M C, Saa Requejo A, et al. 2007. Multifractal analysis of soil surface roughness. Vadose Zone Journal, 7(2): 512–520.García Moreno R, Díaz Álvareza M C, Tarquis Alonsob A, et al. 2008. Tillage and soil type effects on soil surface roughness at semiarid climatic conditions. Soil & Tillage Research, 98(1): 35–44.Gómez J A, Darboux F, Nearing M A. 2003. Development and evolution of rill networks under simulated rainfall. Water Resources Research, 39(6): 1148, doi: 10.1029/2002WR001437.Gómez J A, Nearing M A. 2005. Runoff and sediment losses from rough and smooth soil surfaces in a laboratory experiment. Catena, 59(3): 253–266.Góvers G, Takken I, Helming K. 2000. Soil roughness and overland flow. Agronomine, 20(2): 131–146.Guzha A C. 2004. Effects of tillage on soil micro-relief, surface depression storage and soil water storage. Soil & Tillage Research, 76(2): 105–114.Hairsine P B, Moran C J, Rose C W. 1992. Recent developments regarding the influence of soil surface characteristics on overland flow and erosion. Soil Research, 30(3): 249–264.Helming K, Römkens M J M, Prasad S N. 1998. Surface roughness related processes of runoff and soil loss: a flume study. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 62(1): 243–250.Helming K, Prasad S N. 2001. Soil erosion under different rainfall intensities, surface roughness, and soil water regimes. Catena, 46(2–3): 103–123.Huang C H, Bradford J M. 1992. Application of a laser scanner to quantify soil microrelief. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 56(1): 14–21.Huang J K, Lee K T. 2009. Influences of spatially heterogeneous roughness on flow hydrographs. Advances in Water Resources, 32(11): 1580–1587.Kamphorst E C, Jetten V, Guérif J, et al. 2000. Predicting depressional storage from soil surface roughness. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 64(5): 1749–1758.Lin B B, Richards P L. 2007. Soil random roughness and depression storage on coffee farms of varying shade levels. Agricultural Water Management, 92(3): 194–204.Linden D R, Van Doren D M. 1986. Parameters for characterizing tillage-induced soil surface roughness. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 50(6): 1560–1565.Magunda M K, Larson W E, Linden D R, et al. 1997. Changes in microrelief and their effects on infiltration and erosion during simulated rainfall. Soil Technology, 10(1): 57–67.Moore D C, Singer M J. 1990. Crust formation effects on soil erosion processes. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 54(4): 1117–1123.Ndiaye B, Esteves M, Vandervaere J P, et al. 2005. Effect of rainfall and tillage direction on the evolution of surface crusts, soil hydraulic properties and runoff generation for a sandy loam soil. Journal of Hydrology, 307(1–4): 294–311.Planchon O, Estevesb M, Silveraa N, et al. 2000. Raindrop erosion of tillage induced micro-relief: possible use of the diffusion equation. Soil & Tillage Research, 56(3–4): 131–144.Planchon O, Darboux F. 2001. A fast, simple and versatile algorithm to fill the depressions of digital elevation models. Catena, 46(2–3): 159–176.Rai R K, Upadhyay A, Singh V P. 2010. Effect of variable roughness on runoff. Journal of Hydrology, 382(1–4):115–127.Römkens M J M, Wang J Y. 1986. The effect of tillage on surface roughness. Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 29: 429–433.Römkens M J M, Wang J Y. 1987. Soil roughness changes from rainfall. Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, 30(1): 101–107.Römkens M J M, Helming K, Prasad S N. 2001. Soil erosion under different rainfall intensities, surface roughness, and soil water regimes. Catena, 46(2–3): 103–123.Saleh A. 1993. Soil roughness measurement: chain method. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 48(6): 527–529.Sun Y, Lin J, Lammers P S, et al. 2009. Predicting surface porosity using a fine-scale index of roughness in a cultivated field. Soil & Tillage Research, 103(1): 57–64.Sun W Y, Shao Q Q, Liu J Y. 2013. Soil erosion and its response to the changes of precipitation and vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 23(6): 1091–1106.Takken I, Govers G, Jetten V, et al. 2001. Effects of tillage on runoff and erosion patterns. Soil & Tillage Research, 61(1–2): 55–60.Tang K L. 2004. Soil and Water Conservation of China. Beijing: Science Press, 25–34.Werrer J, Andreas K. 2005. Soil surface roughness measurement—methods, applicability, and surface representation. Catena, 64(2–3): 174–192.Xie J Q. 2005. Sloping Fields of China. Beijing: China Land Press, 24–26.Zobeck T M, Onstad C A. 1987. Tillage and rainfall effects on random roughness: a review. Soil & Tillage Research, 9(1): 1–20. |
|
Viewed |
|
|
|
Full text
|
|
|
|
|
Abstract
|
|
|
|
|
Cited |
|
|
|
|
| |
Shared |
|
|
|
|
| |
Discussed |
|
|
|
|
