Emergence and erosion: a model for rill initiation and development

Soil erosion by overland flow, resulting from infiltration‐excess rainfall, generates rill networks on hillslope areas. The way in which these networks emerge and develop suggests that hillslope erosion functions as a self‐organizing dynamic system. Based upon this argument, a model for soil erosion...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHydrological processes Vol. 14; no. 11-12; pp. 2173 - 2205
Main Authors Favis-Mortlock, David T., Boardman, John, Parsons, Anthony J., Lascelles, Bruce
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 15.08.2000
Subjects
emergence
modelling
rill initiation
runoff
self-organization
soil erosion
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Summary:Soil erosion by overland flow, resulting from infiltration‐excess rainfall, generates rill networks on hillslope areas. The way in which these networks emerge and develop suggests that hillslope erosion functions as a self‐organizing dynamic system. Based upon this argument, a model for soil erosion (RillGrow 1) has been developed: this operates at the spatial scale of raindrops and microtopography. In this paper the second generation of the model (RillGrow 2) is described and applied to four different soil surfaces. Results suggest that, even at this early stage in its development, RillGrow 2 is capable of replicating the success of the earlier model and in some cases of extending them. The success of both models suggests that this self‐organizing view of rill generation may capture some fundamental aspects of the operation of real erosional systems. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-R353B83L-M
ArticleID:HYP61
istex:BB258516371A65BB57C7521EA4B8D851102818BE
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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content type line 23
ISSN:0885-6087
1099-1085
DOI:10.1002/1099-1085(20000815/30)14:11/12<2173::AID-HYP61>3.0.CO;2-6