Changeability of rill erosion properties due to microorganism inoculation

Effects of surface inoculation of biological soil crusts on laminar overland flow resistance

“…In fact, while Kheirfam and Roohi (2020) measured the roughness height of the inoculated trays, finding the highest roughness for Cy, the flow resistance of the data by Jafarpoor et al (2022) and Sadeghi et al (2023) is influenced by the infiltration rate and, consequently, it is not possible to directly compare the different treatments. In other words, the observation by Kheirfam and Roohi (2020) is direct and allows for a comparison between the different treatments, while the treatments by Jafarpoor et al (2022) and Sadeghi et al (2023) cannot be compared to detect a trend.…”

“…in performing measurements regarding this topic to achieve strong results and conclusions. Since the studies by Jafarpoor et al (2022) and Sadeghi et al (2023) were performed using a single value of plot slope, new measurements should be carried out testing different slopes, reasonably varying from 10 to 40%. Other studies could investigate the effects of inoculating the same microorganisms in different soils to test how soil texture and hydrological characteristics (i.e., hydraulic conductivity) influence the effectiveness of BSC.…”

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Notwithstanding the recognized influence of Biological Soil Crusts (BSCs) on surface roughness and its implication for hydrological processes, limited information is currently available on the effect of BSCs on overland flow resistance. The objective of this paper was to investigate the applicability of a theoretically deduced flow resistance equation, based on a power-velocity profile, using the experimental data set by Jafarpoor et al ( 2022) and Sadeghi et al (2023) for bare soil, which is a control condition, and three inoculated soils (cyanobacteria, bacteria, cyanobacteria+bacteria). In particular, the available data set was used to calibrate the relationship between the velocity profile parameter Γ and the flow Froude number.

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Hydrological Properties of Rill Erosion on a Soil from a Drought-Prone Area during Successive Rainfalls as a Result of Microorganism Inoculation

“…Soil microorganisms have recently been certified as one of the most effective and successful bioengineering strategies for minimizing soil erosion and water loss [34][35][36]. Soil microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, bacteria, mosses, lichens, and fungi [37,38], increase the roughness [39], nitrogen fixation [40,41], carbon sequestration [41,42]), infiltration [6,[9][10][11][12]30,43] and runoff control, and reduce soil loss [6,8,30,36,43] by secreting polysaccharide and improving the soil structure to hold more water. By secreting polysaccharide substances, microorganisms cause soil aggregate adhesion and runoff absorption and will eventually balance the runoff.…”

“…By participating in element cycles in the soil, microorganisms provide nutrients for other soil microorganisms [8,46]. Given that the positive role of microorganisms in controlling rill erosion components has only recently been confirmed, in the form of an increase at the beginning of the rill formation and a decrease in the length, width, depth, and density of the formed rills [11,12,30,43], it is expected that this type of microorganism can be used to control and reduce the destructive effect of successive rainfall on runoff generation by rill erosion. Therefore, the goal of this study was to see how individual and mixed inoculation of cyanobacteria and bacteria at mid-sized plots improved hydrological components (i.e., runoff volume, runoff coefficient, infiltrated and seepage water) in rill erosion of an erosion-prone soil in the Marzanabad region of West Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, from consecutive rains.…”