Affectability of splash from soil disturbance in laboratorial erosion studies

Laboratory plots and rainfall simulators are useful tools for erosion studies, but transferring soil and consequent preparation steps which leads to damage soil structure, are among the disadvantages of laboratorial soil erosion studies yet. In other words, soil preparation steps can cause considerable errors in the results of runoff and erosion in laboratorial conditions. On the other hand, measuring splash erosion, as the first ability to detach and move the soil particles, is very important in soil erosion studies. Knowing the uncertainties of splash results due to soil preparation methods is therefore essential to improve the accuracy of laboratory results. The present study has been therefore conducted to measure and compare the amount of splash in a sandy-clay-loam soil in both undisturbed and disturbed conditions in a hillslope in the southern part of Alborz Mountains under three rainfall intensities of 40, 60 and 80 mm h-1. The results showed that disturbing soil in erosion laboratory studies could significantly increase the upslope, downslope, gross splash (p