Investigating and introducing some new rainfall erosivity indexes

The amount of water erosion is basically related to rainfall erosivity and its consequent runoff. In soil erosion and sediment yield models, intensity and energy of rainfall are mostly considered. In this research, some parameters such as the amount of rainfall, maximum intensity and energy in different basic times are correlated to the amount of runoff and sediment outflow from erosion plots to investigate rainfall erosivity index. For this purpose two years of precipitations of Sohrain-Gharacharian flood spreading research station were monitored by recording raingauge. During 2003-2004 period, two plough treatments of parallel and perpendicular to slope direction on three slope classes of 0-12, 12-20, and 20-40 percent with three replicates and randomized complete block design were studied under regional wheat planting and fallow conditions in 1.8x22 sq. meter erosion plots. The correlation between the amounts of runoff and sediment, as dependent variables, resulted from 12 rainfall events and the amounts of rainfall, maximum 1, 5, 15, 30, 60 and 120 minutes of rainfall intensity, rainfall energy and rainfall erosion index, as independent variables, computed by different methods were analyzed with the SPSS V11. Two variables of the amount of rainfall and the maximum rainfall intensity in different base times had the maximum correlation with the amount of runoff and sediment at the levels of 99 to 95 percent.