Abstract
Freshly tilled topsoils containing rock fragments collapse due to rainfall and subsequent drainage. Laboratory experiments were set up to investigate the effects of rock fragment cover and of rock fragment content of topsoils on their structural collapse during and after simulated rainfall. For soils containing no rock fragments, surface roughness, expressed by random roughness (RR), decreases, as one would expect, exponentially with cumulative rainfall. However, for soils containing various amounts of rock fragments, RR decreases only during the first 1.75 cm of rain, after which RR increases with cumulative rainfall depth. For a given rainfall depth, RR increases non-linearly with surface rock fragment cover. Rock fragments present within the tilled topsoil only affect the rate of structural collapse at contents in excess of 70% by mass. However, rock fragments start affecting bulk density of the fine earth when their content exceeds 30% by mass. These results have implications for better interpreting the well-established relation between rock fragment cover and interrill — rill sediment yield and for managing soils containing rock fragments.
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van Wesemael, B., Poesen, J. and de Figueiredo, T. (subm.) Effects of rock fragments on physical degradation of cultivated soils by rainfall. Soil & Tillage Res., 33, in press.
van Wesemael, B., Poesen, J., de Figueiredo, T. and Govers, G. (subm.) Surface roughness evolution of soils containing rock fragments, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.
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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Poesen, J.W.A., Van Wesemael, B. (1995). Effects of Rock Fragments on the Structural Collapse of Tilled Topsoils during Rain. In: Derbyshire, E., Dijkstra, T., Smalley, I.J. (eds) Genesis and Properties of Collapsible Soils. NATO ASI Series, vol 468. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0097-7_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0097-7_17
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