Evaluation of rainfall erosivity and its temporal variation in the Yanhe River catchment of the Chinese Loess Plateau

• Published in: Natural hazards (Dordrecht) Vol. 74; no. 2; pp. 585 - 602
• Main Authors: Yue, B. J., Shi, Z. H., Fang, N. F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.11.2014; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adaptability; Annual precipitation; Catchments; Civil Engineering; Coefficient of variation; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Engineering and environment geology. Geothermics; Environmental Management; Exact sciences and technology; Geophysics/Geodesy; Geotechnical Engineering & Applied Earth Sciences; Hydrogeology; Hydrologic data; Loess; Mathematical models; MFI; Monthly distribution; Natural Hazards; Natural hazards: prediction, damages, etc; Original Paper; Rain; Rainfall; Rainfall distribution; River catchments; Rivers; Seasonal variations; Soil erosion; Temporal logic; Watersheds; Chinese Loess Plateau; Far East; Asia; China; China, People's Rep., Loess Plateau; Rainfall erosivity; Model evaluation; The Loess Plateau; Temporal variation; rivers; models; rainfall; time variations; atmospheric precipitation; accuracy; concentration; drainage basins; soil erosion
• ISSN: 0921-030X; 1573-0840
• DOI: 10.1007/s11069-014-1199-z

The potential of rain to generate soil erosion is known as the rainfall erosivity ( R ), and its estimation is fundamental for a better understanding of the erosive ability of certain rainfall events. In this paper, we investigated the temporal variations of rainfall erosivity using common daily rainfall data from four meteorological stations during 1956 to 1989 and 2008 to 2010 periods in the Yanhe River catchment of the Chinese Loess Plateau. The adaptability of several simplified calculation models for R was evaluated and compared with the results of previous studies. An exponential model based on the modified Fournier index (MFI) was considered as the optimum for our study area. By considering the monthly distribution and coefficient of variation of annual precipitation, equations based on two indices, the MFI and its modification F F , produced a higher calculation accuracy than mean annual precipitation. The rainfall erosivity in the Yanhe River catchment has a remarkable interannual difference, with a seasonality index ranging from 0.69 to 1.05 and a precipitation concentration index from 14.51 to 27.46. In addition to the annual rainfall amounts, the extreme wave of monthly rainfall distribution also has an effect on the magnitude and temporal variation of rainfall erosivity, especially interannual variation. For long time series of rainfall erosivity, a trend coefficient r of −0.07 indicated a slight decline in erosivity in the Yanhe River catchment from 1956 to 2010.