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Impact of wind-water alternate erosion on the characteristics of sediment particles.

TUO Deng-feng1,2, XU Ming-xiang1,2, MA Xin-xin1,2, ZHENG Shi-qing2   

  1. (1State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China; 2Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China)
  • Online:2014-02-18 Published:2014-02-18

Abstract: Wind and water are the two dominant erosion agents that caused soil and water losses in the windwater alternate erosion region on the Loess Plateau. It is meaningful to study the impact of windwater alternate erosion on the characteristics of soil particles for understanding the response of soil quality and environment to erosion. Through wind tunnel combined rainfall simulation, this paper studied the characteristics of the erosive sediment particles under the effect of wind-water alternate erosion. The results showed that the particles of 0-1 cm soil were coarsened by wind erosion at the wind speeds of 11 and 14 m·s-1 compared with no wind erosion. Soil fine particles (<0.01 mm) decreased by 9.8%-10.8%, and coarse particles (>0.05 mm) increased by 16.8%-20.8%. The physical property of surface soil was changed by the wind erosion, which, in turn, caused an increase in finer particles content in the sediment. Compared with no wind erosion, fine particles (<0.01 mm) in sediment under the waterwind alternate erosion increased by 2.7%-18.9%, and coarse particles (>0.05 mm) decreased by 3.7%-9.3%. However, the changing trend of erosive sediment particles after the wind erosion at wind speeds of 11 and 14 m·s-1  was different along with the rainfall intensity and duration. The erosive sediment particles at the rainfall intensities of 60, 80, 100 mm·h-1 changed to greater extents than  at the 150 mm·h-1 rainfall intensity with longer than 15 min runoff flowing.