Overland flow and soil erosion: some processes and their interactions Article uri icon

abstract

  • Flow detachment, sediment transport and interactions between flow characteristics and sediment load are discussed here. Those processes are described using physically based equations as far as possible. Those equations have been used for preparing an algorithm desribing the above mentioned subprocesses. Descriptions of the interactions between sediment load and flow characteristics, namely mean flow velocity, obtained through the proposed algorithm agree with the empirical trends. Also transport capacity seems to be adequately described. As soon as critical conditions for incipient rilling are compared with the algorithm simulations, simulated trends, similar to the empirical ones, are obtained. Hence, the empirical equations describing rilling thresholds can be explained in terms of the physics introduced into the algorithm. -Authors

publication date

  • 1991-01-01