Modelling of Soil Erosion and Accumulation in an Agricultural Landscape—A Comparison of Selected Approaches Applied at the Small Stream Basin Level in the Czech Republic

Abstract

This article deals with the modelling of erosion and accumulation processes in the contemporary cultural landscape of Central Europe. The area of interest is the headwater part of the small stream catchment—the Kopaninský Stream in central Czech Republic. It is an agricultural and forest–agricultural landscape with a relatively rugged topography and riverbed slope, which makes the terrain very vulnerable to water erosion. The main aim of this article is to compare the results of four selected soil erosion and sediment delivery models, which are currently widely used to quantitate the soil erosion and sediment accumulation rates, respectively. The models WaTEM/SEDEM, USPED, InVEST and TerrSet work on several different algorithms. The model outputs are compared in terms of the total volume of eroded and accumulated sediment within the catchment per time unit, and further according to the spatial distribution of sites susceptible to soil loss or sediment accumulation. Although each model is based partly on a specific calculation algorithm and has different data pre-processing requirements, we have achieved relatively comparable results in calculating the average annual soil loss and accumulation. However, each model is distinct in identifying the spatial distribution of specific locations prone to soil loss or accumulation processes.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of soil loss and sediment export in Upper Bilate River Catchment (UBRC), Central Rift Valley of Ethiopia

“…Both bare land and annual cropland showed an average change of 3.66 % and 9.55 %, respectively, in the study years. This finding is comparable with the result ( Aneseyee et al., 2020 ; Bai et al., 2019 ; Jakubínský et al., 2019 ). Similarly, changing the natural vegetation and agroforestry-based agriculture to intensive farming may be another reason for the change in soil loss ( Tesema, 2015 ).…”

“…However, the model is unable to estimate the amount of sediment export that reaches the water body. On the other hand, the InVEST SDR model has an advantage in addressing the limitation of the RUSLE model ( Girma and Gebre, 2020 ; Jakubínský et al., 2019 ). The model has the capacity to estimate the rate of soil loss, sediment export, sediment retention, and other erosion process components.…”

Effect of Fertilization on the Energy Profit of Tall Wheatgrass and Reed Canary Grass

“…Precise comparison of erosion losses in growing different crops in different locations is rather problematic due to various factors. There are even relatively high differences in the determination of the amount of eroded soil by using an individual models applied (without the need for field measurements) to the same territory within one study [64]. However, in the conditions of the Czech Republic, the erosion vulnerability of soils covered with maize was studied, e.g., by Kadlec et al [65].…”

Modeling and Practice of Erosion and Sediment Transport under Change

“…In central Czech Republic, a small stream catchment with an agricultural and forest-agricultural landscape and relatively rugged topography and riverbed slope [57] make the terrain very vulnerable to water erosion, and this was studied to compare four selected soil erosion and sediment delivery models-WaTEM/SEDEM, USPED, InVEST, and TerrSet, with each working on several different algorithms. The models were compared based on the total volume of eroded and accumulated sediment within the catchment per unit time, and according to the spatial distribution of sites susceptible to soil loss or sediment accumulation.…”