Factors Contributing to Sediment Particle Size During Soil Erosion in the Laboratory Flume Experiments
摘要
Soil erosion degrades the land and significantly alters the soil properties. Erosion alters particle gradational properties, potentially altering the sediment deposition and further erosion processes. The particle size distribution of sediment can provide basic information on soil erosion processes, assess the ease with which sediment can be transported, identify dominating transport mechanisms, and predict deposition processes. Analysis of the data was performed over the lab flume experiments. By investigating the particle size distribution of soil before and sediment analysis after erosion events in lab flume tests, their contribution to erosion processes was evaluated. The study found that sediment had a high silt content, followed by sand and a very low clay content. Sediment particle size was mainly controlled by intrinsic soil properties whereas the contribution of reinforcement was found insignificant. However, the presence of roots in soil holds fine particles. Furthermore, splash-induced erosion has a high sand and silt content and a negligible clay content, whereas runoff-induced erosion has a high silt content but negligible sand and clay content. Similarly, the soil loss rate is high for splash-induced erosion due to high sand and low clay content and low for runoff-induced erosion due to low sand and high clay content.