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Field-Scale Soil Erosion Study: An Example from a North Florida Farm
Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org
Citation: Soil Erosion Research Under a Changing Climate, January 8-13, 2023, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, USA .(doi:10.13031/soil.23019)Authors: Y-Ping Hsieh
Keywords: Delivery ratio, Field-scale experiments, Soil erosion, Soil loss, Soil re-deposition
Abstract
Lacking quality soil erosion field data has been a serious problem in soil erosion research because we haven‘t had a practical field technology for measuring real soil erosion rates in common croplands. We cannot verify and calibrate soil erosion models without quality field data. Trimble & Crosson (2000) pointed out that over two decades ago and the soil erosion research community agreed (Nearing et al., 2000).
A desirable soil erosion field technology is not easy to come by because it needs to meet at least the following five requirements: 1) it does not restrict the natural runoff paths of a field; 2) it can be conveniently applied to a field-scale experiment with or without vegetation; 3) it is sensitive for short-term soil erosion observations; 4) it provides information on the property of the eroded soil and 5) it can quantify both the soil loss from a field and the sedimentation budget inside a field. None of the current soil erosion methods can meet all five requirements.
Recently, a novel soil erosion field technology based on the mesh-marker approach (Hsieh, 1992; Hsieh et al., 2009) has been developed and shown promising preliminary results (Hsieh, 2022). This field technology meets all the five requirements mentioned above, plus it can determine soil erosion parameters such as the sediment and nutrient delivery ratios in field-scale experiments. We apply this field technology in a soil erosion study of the 224 m slope (2-5%) of Mears Farm in North Florida. The results indicated that soil loss was 0.4 % - 1.3 % of the sediment re-deposited on the slope. The losses of the associated total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) and total phosphorous (TP) were in a higher range of 2.6 % to 21.8 % of the re-depositions. Deposition from the previous runoff events contributed to 72.4±10.3 % of the soil loss in a current event. The delivery ratios of the soil, silt and clay, organic matter, TKN and TP, respectively, were 0.2 %, 3.2 %, 5.7 %, 3.6 % and 3.2 % with regard to the entire 224 m slope and 8.3 %, 18.1 %, 20.2 %, 27.5 %, and 23.6 % with regard to the lower 33 m slope section. This study showed that this field technology could obtain realistic soil erosion field data in common croplands. The additional soil erosion parameters obtained could improve our understanding of soil erosion processes and advance our knowledge in soil conservation and sustainability research. The field data can be used to verify and calibrate soil erosion models.
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