ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. Changing climate causes higher intensity rainfalls in central and eastern Kansas, and, as a result, larger soil erosion problems. For Kansas, it is crucial to preserve natural resources, such as water and soil, and so it is very important to reduce soil erosion, including erosion from ephemeral gullies, one of the major sources of soil erosion in the region and in the world, contributing from 30 to 90 % to total soil loss. Best management practices should target ephemeral gully erosion processes especially in changing climate, thus, require further studying of the changing rainfall patterns. The goal of the study was to create a mathematical and physically-based model to estimate ephemeral gully erosion taking into account precipitation patterns and subsurface flows as major contributing factors. Results from a prior field experiment were used to develop an event based mathematical model to estimate ephemeral gully erosion on a particular field. This mathematical model was built to account for subsurface water flow as well as field properties like: soil type, precipitation, geometry, best management practice, antecedent soil saturation, etc. Model simulations were ran with different rainfall patterns, and erosion rates were compared for each event. Conclusions were made on how the change in precipitation patterns may alter the ephemeral gully erosion processes.