The Seasonal Variation of Soil Erosion by Water in Southwestern Quebec

Abstract

Fallow plots were maintained at four sites that varied with respect to soil type and slope aspect and gradient to determine seasonal patterns of soil loss in southwestern Quebec. Equipment used to measure and record runoff included tipping-bucket flowmeters and Datapod digital recorders. Soil loss was measured on a seasonal basis from September 1983 to August 1985, to compare the percentage of annual soil loss by water that occurred during winter and summer months. Summer soil loss accounted for approximately 80% of the total annual soil loss from coarse-textured sites. Winter soil losses at the fine-textured site were responsible for almost 90% of the annual soil loss from that site. Key words: Soil erosion, universal soil loss equation, spring runoff

Seasonal distribution of runoff and soil loss under four tillage treatments in the upper St. John River valley New Brunswick, Canada

“…Once again, this discrepancy may be attributed to measurement errors in soil loss because the relative error in determining sediment load increases with decreasing amount of sediment. The noncropping season soil loss under fallow of 8.1% is comparable to data reported by Wall (1981) andWall et al (1988) in southwestern Ontario, Kirby and Mehuys (1987a) in southwestern Quebec, and Black et al (1990) in southern Manitoba. They reported that for coarse-and medium-textured soils, soil loss during late-winter and earlyspring accounted for less than 10% of annual soil loss.…”

“…They reported that for coarse-and medium-textured soils, soil loss during late-winter and earlyspring accounted for less than 10% of annual soil loss. A higher proportion of soil loss during snow-melt runoff was reported by Kirby and Mehuys (1987a) in fine-textured soils and van Vliet and Hall (1991) under two different rotations. By replacing 1 yr of summer fallow with barley under-seeded to red fescue in 4-yr rotations, van Vliet and Hall (1991) found that snow-melt runoff increased from 90 to 96% of the total annual runoff and soil loss increased from 39 to 80% of total soil loss.…”

“…Several studies have shown that late winter and early-spring runoff accounted for less than 10% of annual erosion (van Vliet and Wall 1981;Wall et al 1988;Black et al, 1990). On the other hand, Kirby and Mehuys (1987a) found that in southwestern Quebec 10-89% of the annual soil loss occurred in the winter months. Similarly, van Vliet and Hall (1991) reported that snow melt runoff accounted for 90 and 96% of the total annual runoff and 39 and 80% of the total annual soil loss, respectively, from two summerfallow-canola-barley rotations in the Peace River region of British Columbia.…”

“…Seasonal variations in these soil properties are widely recognized (Byran 1971;Coote et al 1988;Kok and McCool 1990) and, therefore, soil erodibility also varies among seasons. Many studies have shown that soil erodibility was highest under wet and partially thawing soil conditions during late winter and early spring and was lowest during the summer months despite high soil loss from erosive rains (Mutchler and Carter 1983;Alberts et al 1987;Kirby and Mehuys 1987b;Wall et al 1988;Bajracharya and Lal 1992). Some of these studies have described seasonal variations in soil erodibility with a cosine function.…”

“…Erosion occurring during rainfall runoff was relatively unimportant, accounting for about 4% of the total sediment yield. Temporal variations in soil erodibility (K factor), cropping and management practices and climatic conditions are some of the major factors affecting the seasonal distribution of soil erosion (Mutchler and Carter 1983;Kirby and Mehuys 1987b).…”