P.I.A.

Kinnell University of Canberra 1

Some issues related to modelling erosion and sediment delivery from
hillslopes with respect to water quality.

It is well known that soil erosion on hillslopes may result in sediment and associated pollutant
chemicals being delivered to rivers and streams. While rivers and streams may also receive
sediment from gully and stream bank erosion, hillslope erosion and sediment delivery are important
in terms of water quality because of the quantities of nutrients and agricultural chemicals
(herbicides, pesticides) that may be delivered to rivers and streams from hillslopes. All water
quality models include some mechanism for determining the sediment and chemical load coming
from hillslopes. A common approach uses the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE, Wischemier
and Smith, 1978) or the revised version of it (RUSLE, Renard et al., 1997) to predict erosion and
account for the failure of the USLE/RUSLE to deal with deposition through the use of sediment
delivery ratios. This approach lacks scientific robustness.

The misuse of sediment delivery ratios as a sediment delivery coefficients

The sediment delivery ratio (R
SD
) is usually defined as the ratio of the sediment delivered from a
point (q
s
) to the total erosion upslope of that point (). In modelling sediment delivery on hillslopes,

q
s
= R
SD
(1)

is assumed to be true. In this situation, R
SD
is assumed to act as a sediment delivery coefficient that
remains constant while varies. This assumption is incorrect.

Particles transported by flow are being deposited and lifted up from the surface all the time.
Deposition in the context of modelling sediment delivery from hillslopes is associated with net
deposition the situation produced when soil material is being deposited at a faster rate than it is
being lifted back into the flow. This occurs when the transport capacity of the flow is exceeded and
often occurs on concave hillslopes when flow velocities decline as the slope gradient declines. The
transport capacity depends on flow conditions and the soil particle size distribution. Consider, for
example, that the lowest segment on a concave hillslope would produce over some period of time 2
tons of eroded material if deposition did not occur in the segment. Consider also that, over that
period of time, the segment has a set of flow conditions that, for the soil on that hillslope, produces
a transport capacity of 5 tons. Now consider that erosion in the upslope area yields 20 t of sediment
to the segment so that 15 t is deposited in the segment and, as a consequence, there is no erosion in
that segment. The SDR for the system is 5/20 = 0.25. Now consider that erosion in the upslope area

Figure 1: Sediment delivery ratios
associated with a segment having a
transport capacity of 5 tons and varying
amounts of sediment entering from
erosion upslope.

0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
0 5 10 15 20
sediment from upslope (t)
S
e
d
i
m
e
n
t
D
e
l
i
v
e
r
y
R
a
t
i
o
segment transport capacity = 5 t
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 2
is reduced by half. 10 t passes into the segment but still only 5 t exits and again there is no erosion
in the segment. The SDR is now 5/10 = 0.5. Now consider that the erosion in the upslope area is
reduced so that 2 t enters the segment. No deposition occurs in the segment and so it can erode to
add 2 t to the sediment delivered to the channel. The SDR is now 4/4 = 1.0. The values used here
are arbitrary but illustrate that fact that SDR values depend on how erosion amounts vary (Figure 1)
and are not simply determined by topography, water yield and surface roughness. The only time
that the sediment delivered is directly related to erosion is when SDR = 1.0, i.e. when there is
no deposition in the segment.

While, as indicated above, sediment delivery ratios do not meet the criteria for a sediment delivery
coefficient in that that they do not vary independently of erosion amount because of the way the
deposition process operates, Eq. 1 also fails when the USLE or the RUSLE is used because the
USLE and the RUSLE over predict low erosion and under predict high erosion both on an average
annual basis and a yearly basis (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Measured and predicted soil losses for 208 USLE runoff and soil plots in the USA on
(A) an annual average basis and (B) a yearly basis obtained by Risse et al. (1993) using the
USLE.

Under these circumstances, because the predicted erosion loss tends to be higher than the actual loss
when there is low erosion and lower than the actual loss when the is high erosion, the sediment
delivery ratio required to predict sediment delivery for a low amount of erosion will be lower than
that for a high amount of erosion even if the proportion of the eroded material discharged from the
hillslope is constant (Table 1).

Table 1:
The effect of USLE prediction
bias on sediment delivery
ratios required to predict
sediment delivery as that bias
changes from a notional +
10% to 8% over a range of
arbitrary erosion amounts
when sediment delivery is 10%
of the actual erosion amount.

actual
erosion
sediment
delivery USLE bias
USLE
erosion
Required
SDR
1 0.1 10.0% 1.10 0.091
2 0.2 8.0% 2.16 0.093
3 0.3 6.0% 3.18 0.094
4 0.4 4.0% 4.16 0.096
5 0.5 2.0% 5.10 0.098
6 0.6 0.0% 6.00 0.100
7 0.7 -2.0% 6.86 0.102
8 0.8 -4.0% 7.68 0.104
9 0.9 -6.0% 8.46 0.106
10 1.0 -8.0% 9.20 0.109
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 3
The need to model sediment transport

The failure of sediment delivery ratios to apply over a range of soil erosion values can only be
overcome by the use of an appropriate sediment transport model to control the transport of sediment
over the landscape. The approach outlined by Meyer and Wischmeier (1969) to simulate the
processes of soil erosion by water (Figure 5) can be applied as in the discussion associated with
Figure 1 to determine the transport of sediment from hillslope segments or grid cells within a
catchment.

Figure 5. The approach used by
Meyer and Wischmeier (1969)
to simulate the processes of soil
erosion by water

In the context of this approach, erosion predicted by the USLE , or the RUSLE, or the USLE-M
(Kinnell and Risse, 1998), is considered to represent detachment and the transport capacity is
determined by the sediment transport model. Obviously, the choice of sediment transport model is
critical to the determination of sediment delivery under these circumstances. Water quality models
like AGNPS (Young et al., 1987) and ANSWERS-2000 (Bouraoui and Dillaha, 1996) use sediment
transport models to control the movement of sediment over landscapes.

The over prediction of sediment delivery by the USLE and the RUSLE in the context of modelling
water quality is not simply an issue associated with deposition. It has been observed that the amount
of sediment actually deposited on hillslopes is much less than indicated by SDR values determined
in most catchments. One of the reasons for this is that the USLE/RUSLE model was designed to
apply to field size areas and a limit of 1000 ft or about 300 m slope lengths. In most situations
where the USLE/RUSLE is applied in the water quality area, slope lengths exceed these values and
erosion may be overestimated as a result. The amount of deposition predicted in most cases is
fictitious.

Runoff and modelling erosion

Runoff is an important factor in determining erosion and sediment transport but is not considered
directly in the USLE and the RUSLE. It can be argued that because of this more process based
model like WEPP (Laflen et al., 1997) should be used. Unfortunately, WEPP also over predicts low
erosion and under predicts high erosion both on an average annual basis and a yearly basis (Figure
3).

P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 4
Figure 3. Measured and predicted soil losses for runoff and soil loss plots in the USA on (A)
an annual average basis and (B) a yearly basis obtained by Tiwari et al. (2000) using WEPP.

The R factor in the USLE and the RUSLE is given by the average annual value of the EI
30
index,
the product of event kinetic energy (E) and the maximum 30-minute rainfall intensity. The
USLE/RUSLE model operates in a two staged way. Firstly, the soil loss on a bare fallow plot 22.13
m long on a 9 % slope with cultivation up and down the slope is predicted and then coefficients for
slope length, slope gradient, crop and crop management, and conservation support practice used to
determine the soil loss for a situation that differs from that bare fallow plot 22.13 m long on a 9 %
slope with cultivation up and down the slope. Any error in predicting erosion for the bare fallow
condition is transferred to the prediction of erosion for vegetated conditions. Figure 4A indicates
that the over predicting of low erosion and under predicting of high erosion both on an average
annual basis and a yearly basis by the USLE and the RUSLE is, to some large extent, a result of the
inability of the EI
30
index to account for the soil losses associated with individual erosion events for
the bare fallow situation.

Figure 4. Observed and predicted soil losses for individual events on a bare fallow plot at
Morris, MN when soil loss was predicted (A) using the EI
30
index and (B) using the product of
the runoff ratio and the EI
30
index as described by Kinnell and Risse (1998) for the USLE-M.
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 5
The USLE-M (Kinnell and Risse, 1998) is a modification of the USLE/RUSLE that uses an event
erosivity index which is based on the consideration that sediment concentration is dependent on the
kinetic energy per unit quantity of rain during the event and some measure of event rainfall
intensity. Assuming that I
30
acts as that measure of event rainfall intensity results in an event
erosivity index which is given by the product of the EI
30
index and the event runoff ratio (Q
R
). As
can be seen from Figure 4B, that erosivity index has a much better capacity to predict event erosion
than the EI
30
index. The Q
R
EI
30
index does not show any particular bias with respect to over
predicting and under predicting event erosion. In Figure 4, the parameter Eff
ln
is the Nash
Sutcliffe (1970) efficiency factor for log-normal data. A value of zero implies that the model is as
capable as predicting the result as using the mean of the independent variable. For the bare fallow
plot considered in Figure 4, Eff
ln
= 0.084 for the EI
30
index. Eff
ln
= 0.738 for the Q
R
EI
30
index. Eff
ln

= 1.0 occurs for the perfect model.

The USLE model structure and event erosion

The USLE model operates in two stages. Firstly, the product of the erosivity and the erodibility
factors is used to predict erosion for bare fallow with cultivation up and down the slope on a
22.13m long 9% slope, and then that erosion amount is modified by coefficients (L, S, C and P) to
predict the erosion on an area that differs in some way from the bare fallow with cultivation up and
down the slope on a 22.13m long 9% slope situation. The Agricultural Non Point Source pollution
model (AGNPS, Young et al., 1987) uses the USLE to predict event erosion and a sediment
transport model to control sediment movement across the landscape. While the Q
R
EI
30
index can
predict event erosion significantly better than the EI
30
index, the structure of USLE/RUSLE model
is not suitable for predicting erosion for individual events. It is possible to estimate short term
values of C and P that can be applied to individual events but runoff does not necessarily occur on
both bare fallow and cropped areas during all rainfall events that produce erosion on bare fallow
areas. As can be seen from Figure 5, even if erosion for the bare fallow condition is known or
predicted accurately, significant erosion on cropped areas will be predicted for many events that
actually produced no erosion.

Figure 5. Relationship between
event soil losses predicted by
multiplying event soil losses from
a nearby bare fallow plot by
RUSLE period Soil Loss Ratios
(fortnightly C factor values) and
event soil losses observed for
conventional corn at Clarinda,
Iowa plus 0.0001 tons acre-1 to
enable predicted losses to be
displayed when observed losses
are zero.

This problem does not occur with average annual erosion because, over the long term, erosion is
going to occur on both bare fallow and cropped areas if C>0. Consequently, the Q
R
EI
30
index can
be used to predict long term average annual erosion in conjunction with the USLE/RUSLE L, S, C
0.010
0.100
1.000
10.000
100.000
0.0001 0.0010 0.0100 0.1000 1.0000 10.0000 100.0000
observered event soil loss + 0.0001 (T/A)
p
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d
e
v
e
n
t
s
o
i
l
l
o
s
s
(
T
/
A
)
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 6
and P factors. Under these circumstances, the R factor can be defined as the average annual value of
the Q
R
EI
30
index for bare fallow with cultivation up and down the slope while K varies from the
values associated with the USLE/RUSLE as described by Kinnell and Risse (1998). The
USLE/RUSLE L, S, C and P factors can be used because, under these circumstances, the product of
R and K is directed at prediction long term average annual soil loss for the bare fallow cultivation
up and down the plot condition. The USLE-M (Kinnell and Risse, 1998) does not operate in this
manner because it is directed at predicting event erosion. The Q
R
EI
30
index in the USLE-M is
calculated using runoff from the area being eroded rather than for the bare fallow cultivation up and
down the slope condition. As a consequence of this, all other factors that in the USLE that include
an effect of runoff indirectly within them cannot be used. Consequently, the USLE-M is given by

A
e
= R
UM.e
K
UM.e
L S C
UM.e
P
UM.e
(2)

where A
e
= event erosion, R
UM.e
is Q
R
EI
30
, K
UM.e
is USLE-M soil erodibility factor for the event, L
and S are the USLE topographic factors, and C
UM.e
and P
UM.e
are the USLE-M event factors for crop
and crop management and support practice respectively.

The USLE-M is not the only USLE variant that considers runoff directly with the event erosivity
index. In the MUSLE (Williams , 1975),

R
MUSLE.e
= (Q
e
q
p.e
)
0.56
(3)

where Q
e
is event runoff and q
p.e
is the peak runoff rate during the event, and is an empirical
coefficient. SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool, Arnold et al., 1998) uses the MUSLE to
predict sediment yield from hillslopes. Like the USLE-M, MUSLE is directed at predicting event
erosion but uses USLE K, C and P factors. In so doing, the effect of runoff is taken into account
twice, directly in the erosivity index and indirectly in K, C and P. Thus, the MUSLE is not a valid
variant of the USLE.

Non uniformity of runoff production on hillslopes.

The USLE was developed for planer surfaces. Foster and Wischmeir (1974) developed an equation
for predicting the topographic effects in segments on non planer hillslopes. According to this
approach, the effect of segment size and position for the ith segment in the hillslope is given by

i
m+1
-
i-1

m+1

L
i
=
__________________________
(4)
(
i
-
i-1
) 22.13
m
where
i
is the length (m) from the top of the slope to the end of the segment,
i-1
is the length to the
top of the segment and m is the slope length exponent associated with the segment. This equation
was extended by Desmet and Govers (1966) to grid cells resulting in the equation for a grid cell
with coordinates i,j being given by

(A
i,j-in
+ D
2
)
m+1
- A
i,j-in
m+1

L
i,j
= (5)
D
m+2
x
i,j
m
(22.13)
m
where A
i,j-in
is the area (m
2
) upslope of the cell and D is the size (m) of the grid cell. Both equations
are based on the assumption that runoff is produced uniformly over the hillslope. However, this is
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 7
not the case when the hillslope contains a variety of soils and crops. In order to account for non
uniformity in runoff production, the effective value of the length of slope or upslope area used in
the calculation of the L factor must differ from the physical length of slope or upslope area. For
example, L for cell i,j should be determined using

(A
i,j-in.eff
+ D
2
)
m+1
- A
i,j-in.eff
m+1

L
i,j
= (6)
D
m+2
x
i,j
m
(22.13)
m
where A
i,j-in.eff
is less than A
i,j-in
when runoff production in the upslope area is less than if it were
produced uniformly over the whole area including the cell, equal to A
i,j-in
if the production of runoff
is uniform over the whole area, and greater than A
i,j-in
if runoff production in the upslope area is
greater than if it were produced uniformly over the whole area including the cell.

A
i,j-in.eff
= A
i.j-in
Q
Ce.i,j-in
/ Q
Ce.i,j-all
(7)

where Q
Ce.i,j-in
is the runoff coefficient for the upslope area and Q
Ce.i,j-all
is the runoff coefficient for
the area including the cell meets these criteria (Kinnell, 2005). Figure 6 illustrates how A
i,j-in.eff

vaires as Q
Ce.i,j-in
varies

Figure 6. Schematic
representation of the variation
of A
eff
for a cell in relation to
the variation in the runoff
coefficient in the upslope area

Conclusion

The use of the USLE/RUSLE in conjunction with sediment delivery ratios in predicting sediment
delivery from hillslopes has been widespread. However, as shown above, the effect of deposition is
not appropriately dealt with in the erosion sediment delivery ratio method. Deposition results
from the sediment supply exceeding the transport capacity of surface runoff and this fact needs to
be considered explicitly. It is possible to consider erosion as predicted by the USLE/RUSLE as the
source of sediment whose transport may be limited by the transport capacity of runoff as
determined by an appropriate sediment transport model. This approach is more difficult to develop
and use than the USLE/RUSLE - sediment delivery ratio approach because it involves predicting
P.I.A. Kinnell University of Canberra 8
runoff, a factor considered by many as difficult to predict. The USLE/RUSLE sediment delivery
ratio approach is less difficult because runoff prediction is not required. However, erosion and
sediment transport are hydrologic processes that involve surface runoff, and failure to consider the
effect of runoff directly in the modelling of erosion and sediment delivery from hillslopes may
result in decisions being made using erroneous information.

References

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