Vol18 No.3: 706-715

【Title】Effect of storm pattern on soil erosion in damaged rangeland; field rainfall simulation approach

【Author】LeilaGHOLAMI¹*, Abdulavahed KHALEDI DARVISHAN², Veliber SPALEVIC³, Artemi CERDÀ⁴, Ataollah KAVIAN⁵

【Addresses】1 Department of Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University (SANRU), Sari 48181-66996, Iran; 2 Department of Watershed Management Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor 46417-76489, Iran; 3 Department of Geography, Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Montenegro, Niksic 81400, Montenegro; 4 Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group Departament de Geografia. Universitat de València. Blasco Ibàñez 28, Valencia 46010, Spain; 5 Department of Watershed Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, Sari Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University (SANRU), Sari 48181-66996, Iran

【Corresponding author】Leila GHOLAMI

【Citation】Gholami L, Khaledi Darvishan A, Spalevic V, et al. (2021) Effect of storm pattern on soil erosion in rangeland exposed to destruction; field rainfall simulation approach. Journal of Mountain Science 18(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-019-5633-2

【DOI】https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-019-5633-2

【Abstract】Raindrop size, rainfall intensity and runoff discharge affect the detachment and transportation of soil particles. Among these three factors, the rainfall intensity seems to be more important because it can change other two factors. Storm patterns can be determined bychanging the rainfall intensity during the storm. Therefore, the objective of this research is to test the influence of storm pattern on runoff, soil erosion and sediment concentration on a rangeland soil slope under field rainfall simulation. Four storm rainfall intensity patterns were selected for examining the effects of variations in storm event characteristics on soil erosion processes. The selected storm patterns were: I (45, 55 and 70mmh⁻¹); II (45, 70 and 55mmh⁻¹); III: (70, 55 and 45mmh⁻¹); and IV (55, 45 and 70mmh⁻¹). The last pattern is a new one instead of the uniform pattern which has been sufficiently studied in previous researches. The experiments were conducted in field plots (in Kojour watershed, Mazandaran Province, Iran) with an area of one square meter and an constant slope gradientof18%, surrounded by galvanised sheets. Following the non-uniform prioritization of the storm patterns for the studied variables, time to runoff (I>II>IV>III), runoff volume (III>IV>II>I), sediment concentration (IV>III>I>II) and soil erosion (III>IV>II>I)), it can be generally inferred that each pattern has specific effect on soil erosion processes during a storm.The results of the general linear model (GLM) test indicated that the effects of storm pattern on time to runoff, total runoff volume, runoff coefficient and soil erosion were significant at a level of 99%. The Duncan test showed that the storm patterns can be divided intothree groups of III, IV; II; I (for time to runoff), I, II; IV, III (for runoff coefficient), and I; II; IV, III (for runoff volume and soil erosion).

【Keywords】Plot scale; Runoff coefficient;Soil erosion;Storm patterns;Time to runoff