Journal
NONLINEAR PROCESSES IN GEOPHYSICS
Volume 24, Issue 3, Pages 569-579Publisher
COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
DOI: 10.5194/npg-24-569-2017
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [EAR1331906]
- University of Iowa NSF IGERT program, Geoinformatics for Environmental and Energy Modeling and Prediction
- NASA EPSCoR Program [NNX10AN28A]
- Iowa Space Grant Consortium [NNX10AK63H]
- USDA- AFRI grant
- NASA [NNX10AN28A, 128014] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study examines the rainfall-induced change in soil microroughness of a bare smooth soil surface in an agricultural field. The majority of soil microroughness studies have focused on surface roughness on the order of similar to 5-50mm and have reported a decay of soil surface roughness with rainfall. However, there is quantitative evidence from a few studies suggesting that surfaces with microroughness less than 5 mm may undergo an increase in roughness when subject to rainfall action. The focus herein is on initial microroughness length scales on the order of 2 mm, a low roughness condition observed seasonally in some landscapes under bare conditions and chosen to systematically examine the increasing roughness phenomenon. Three rainfall intensities of 30, 60, and 75 mm h(-1) are applied to a smoothened bed surface in a field plot via a rainfall simulator. Soil surface microroughness is recorded via a surface-profile laser scanner. Several indices are utilized to quantify the soil surface microroughness, namely the random roughness (RR) index, the crossover length, the variance scale from the Markov-Gaussian model, and the limiting difference. Findings show a consistent increase in roughness under the action of rainfall, with an overall agreement between all indices in terms of trend and magnitude. Although this study is limited to a narrow range of rainfall and soil conditions, the results suggest that the outcome of the interaction between rainfall and a soil surface can be different for smooth and rough surfaces and thus warrant the need for a better understanding of this interaction.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available