Hydraulic modeling of soil erorion

The prediction and estimate of soil erosion is fundamental important for understanding the effect of the spatial heterogeneity of underlying surfaces and preventing ecological environment deterioration. This paper summarized soil erosion into three basic dynamics processes, including the process of runoff generation caused by rainfall, the process of sediment yield on hillslopes by overland flow, and the process of runoff concentration and sediment transport on watersheds. Then, a processbased soil erosion model was developed according to the characteristics of erosion on the Loess Plateau. Applying the proposed model, the characteristics of runoff generation and soil erosion on hillslopes were analyzed. In final, the runoff and sediment yield processes in a typical catchment on the loess plateau was estimated, which exhibited a good agreement between predicted results and observation. Copyright © 2004-06 by Asian Fluid Mechanics Committee