The susceptibility of different texture soils to splash erosion under different rainfall intensity and antecedent water content

Splash erosion is recognized as the first stage in a soil erosion process and results from the soil surface bombing by rain drops. Splash erosion is a complex process including the detachment of soil particles by raindrops followed by splash transport of a part of the detached particles. Quantification of splash erosion in the soils with different textures for various combinations of rainfall intensities and antecedent moisture content (AMC) is essential to understand splash erosion processes. The investigation on the splash erosion in the field is often expensive and time-consuming. Rainfall simulation has been used extensively as a cost effective method for soil erosion prediction across a lot of related factors. This study was conducted to investigate splash erosion in relation to rainfall intensity and AMC in different soil textures using the simulated rainfalls.
Splash erosion was measured in three soil textural classes (sand, silt and clay) and four AMC (from air-dried to saturation conditions) using the four simulated rainfalls (10, 20, 30 and 40 mm h-1 in intensity). Forty-eight experimental units were designed at three replicates and analyzed using the factorial experiment in the completely randomized design. The experimental units were splash boxes with 25 cm × 35 cm dimensions and 5-cm depth. Splash erosion was determined using the accumulation of splashed particles during each rainfall and accordingly drying in 105 °C for 24-h. The physicochemical soil properties were determined using the conventional methods in the laboratory. Splash erosion data were analyzed using the Duncan parametric test for comparison of the effects of soil texture, rainfall intensity and, AMC on the splash erosion. Data were analyzed using the SAS 9.4 software and the diagrams were delineated using the SigmaPlot software.
Significant differences were found in the splash erosion among the soil textures (P Results of this study indicated that Silt is the most susceptible soil texture to splash erosion. Also, variations of splash erosion in silt texture were larger than other textures. Splash erosion of each soil could be reliably predicted based on the rainfall intensity and antecedent water content.