Ideas for Physical Interpretation of the USLE. Rousseva, S. Technical Report LNS0418027, Trieste, 2003.
abstract   bibtex   
[Excerpt: Soil Erosion by Water - Extend, Processes and Model for Conservation Planning] In order to develop sustainable systems of agriculture that satisfy the present and the future needs of the mankind, there must be reliable information on the constrains and potential of the land resource. The UNEP Project GLASOD (GLobal Assessment of SOil Degradation) recognized erosion by water as the most important soil degradation type, representing more than a half of all soil degradation (Oldeman et al., 1991). Soil erosion by water refers to a series of processes leading to soil depletion and export of sediment. It takes place through three main processes: (i) mechanical disruption, slaking, compaction, dispersion and detachment of soil particles, aggregates and clods from the soil mass due to the impact of raindrops and the overland flow; (ii) movement of detached material by gravity or by overland flow and (iii) deposition. Planning for soil and water conservation measures requires knowledge of the relations between the driving forces that cause loss of soil (e.g. the erosivity of rainfall, the slope of the land, the erodibility of soil) and the factors that help to reduce such loss (e.g. the plant cover, the conservation practices and measures, the soil resistance). The first developed and one of the most widely-used models for effective conservation planning based on predictions of average annual soil erosion rates and able to estimate soil loss over a wide range of situations is the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). The USLE approach to soil erosion description (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) is empirical and based on statistical relationships undermining its universal applicability. Further I will discuss ideas for introducing deterministic elements in the USLE approach for estimating the cover and management factor C and the soil erodibility factor K.
@techreport{roussevaIdeasPhysicalInterpretation2003,
  title = {Ideas for Physical Interpretation of the {{USLE}}},
  author = {Rousseva, Svetla},
  year = {2003},
  address = {{Trieste}},
  abstract = {[Excerpt: Soil Erosion by Water - Extend, Processes and Model for Conservation Planning] In order to develop sustainable systems of agriculture that satisfy the present and the future needs of the mankind, there must be reliable information on the constrains and potential of the land resource. The UNEP Project GLASOD (GLobal Assessment of SOil Degradation) recognized erosion by water as the most important soil degradation type, representing more than a half of all soil degradation (Oldeman et al., 1991). Soil erosion by water refers to a series of processes leading to soil depletion and export of sediment. It takes place through three main processes: (i) mechanical disruption, slaking, compaction, dispersion and detachment of soil particles, aggregates and clods from the soil mass due to the impact of raindrops and the overland flow; (ii) movement of detached material by gravity or by overland flow and (iii) deposition. Planning for soil and water conservation measures requires knowledge of the relations between the driving forces that cause loss of soil (e.g. the erosivity of rainfall, the slope of the land, the erodibility of soil) and the factors that help to reduce such loss (e.g. the plant cover, the conservation practices and measures, the soil resistance). The first developed and one of the most widely-used models for effective conservation planning based on predictions of average annual soil erosion rates and able to estimate soil loss over a wide range of situations is the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). The USLE approach to soil erosion description (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) is empirical and based on statistical relationships undermining its universal applicability. Further I will discuss ideas for introducing deterministic elements in the USLE approach for estimating the cover and management factor C and the soil erodibility factor K.},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-13491366,physically-based-vs-empirical,soil-erosion,soil-resources,usle},
  lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-13491366},
  number = {LNS0418027}
}

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