STUDY OF VEGETAL COVER INFLUENCE ON EXPERIMENTAL EROSION PLOTS BY A RUNOFF-EROSION MODELING

The present paper describes the observed data concerning water erosion for differentexperimental plots of São João do Cariri experimental basin located in a typical semiaridregion of Brazil. The semiarid area of Paraíba state presents long drought periods, differenttypes of vegetal cover and great s...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fernanda Maria de Lima Paiva, Richarde Marques da Silva, Celso Augusto Guimarães Santos
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Editora da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia 2005-05-01
Series:Sociedade & Natureza
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sociedadenatureza.ig.ufu.br/include/getdoc.php?id=1323&article=660&mode=pdf
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Summary:The present paper describes the observed data concerning water erosion for differentexperimental plots of São João do Cariri experimental basin located in a typical semiaridregion of Brazil. The semiarid area of Paraíba state presents long drought periods, differenttypes of vegetal cover and great spatial variability of intense rainfall events. All those factorsare condicionantes to the erosion process, since they directly influence the sediment yield,agricultural soil loss and, consequently, the degradation of rural areas.This study presents the application of KINEROS2 model (kinematic runoff anderosion model), to the erosion plots of 100 m2 in São João do Cariri experimental basinlocated in the semiarid area of Paraíba state. The main objective of this work is to model theerosion process and to try to quantify the influence of the vegetal cover and slope degree forseveral events observed into two erosion experimental plots. The application of the modelenclosed the selection of the precipitation data and calibration of the physical basinparameters. The observed data showed that these bare plots presented, larger sediment yieldthan when they are with vegetal cover. The simulation results showed that the initial degree ofsoil saturation (Si) and the rain splash coefficient (cf) were the most sensitive parametersduring the calibration process, presenting small values of Si for the bare plots and small valuesof cf for the plots with vegetal cover. Finally, the results showed that the KINEROS2 modelcan be also considered a promising tool for the simulation of the runoff and erosion processesin the semiarid area of northeastern Brazil.
ISSN:0103-1570
1982-4513