Mahin Kalehhouei; Raoof Mostafazadeh; Abazar Esmali Ouri; Rahmani Naneh Karan, Fardin; Fazeli, Alireza; Nazila Alaei; Zeinab Hazbavi
Abstract
Introduction
The rainfall system of a major part of Iran is mediterranean, where the precipitation amount during the vegetation period is low. In addition, the occurrence of precipitation in the non-vegetation period or beginning of the vegetation period, which does not cover the surface of the earth ...
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Introduction
The rainfall system of a major part of Iran is mediterranean, where the precipitation amount during the vegetation period is low. In addition, the occurrence of precipitation in the non-vegetation period or beginning of the vegetation period, which does not cover the surface of the earth well, is one of the important reasons for water erosion in Iran. Since vegetation has a special role in soil erosion control and runoff retention, any change in the vegetation structure and pattern, which expresses the landscape pattern and function, can have a significant effect on changing hydrological processes. Therefore, the assessment of soil and water loss and the quantification of its relationship with landscape metrics provide key information for the development of water and soil quality management strategies.
Materials and methods
The current research was conducted to investigate the hydrological component changes with landscape metrics on 2 m2 plots using simulated rainfall at an intensity of 32 mm.h-1 in a part of rangelands of Ardabil County. At first, considering the type and percentage of vegetation as the main variable, eight groups of vegetation composition along with one group without vegetation (control) were considered with three replications. The composition (and percentage) of the vegetation from the first to the eighth groups, respectively, include low-height graminea predominance (45), the composition of dense bushes with graminea (43), bushes with low-height and medium-distribution (37), sparse bushes mostly with low and medium height (31), the composition of sparse bushes with graminea (56), dense bushes in upper parts (54), low-height bushes with very low distribution (15), and dense bushes with almost uniform distribution (56). After measuring the runoff and sediment at the plot outlets, different hydrological components were calculated. Then, plots with nine different vegetation combinations were imaged in three replicates before and after rainfall simulation. After transferring the images prepared from the plots to the Arc/Map10.8 environment, nine important landscape metrics were calculated.
Results and discussion
Changes in the mean patch density (4.43-26.90), largest patch index (54.16-86.75), edge density (17.12-107.38), landscape shape index (1.50-4.47), mean shape area (4.16-37.46), mean Euclidean nearest neighbor distance (0.00-1.65), landscape division index (0.19-2.31), mean patch shape index (1.24-22.85), and the effective mesh size (15.80-43.96) indicate their different influence from different percentage and composition of vegetation cover. Spearman's correlation matrix analysis showed a nonsignificant relationship between the mean soil loss, runoff volume, runoff coefficient, and sediment concentration with landscape metrics (r<0.26 and p-value>0.10). The small scale of the studied plots, the lack of diversity in the vegetation composition, and the uniformity in terms of vegetation height can be cited as the reasons for the lack of correlation. In general, groups with vegetation values above 50% had a better condition in terms of LPI, AREA_MN, and MESH, which indicates more connectivity and less degradation. The increase in vegetation cover and spatial heterogeneity above the landscape surface can change the path of sediment transport, reduce sediment connectivity, and lead to a decrease in sedimentation.
Conclusion
The obtained results are applicable in explaining the appropriate reference to optimize water and soil protection measures on the watershed scale. However, It is suggested that similar and more comprehensive research be done in different scales of erosion plots and even in the landscape (slope) scale so that by considering a wide range of vegetation, topography, climatic conditions, as well as successive rains, it is possible to compare the results, optimum selection of study scale, and finally planning to manage and protect vegetation and water and soil resources.
Seyed Hamidreza Sadeghi; Fahimeh Mirchooli; Zeinab Hazbavi; Abdulvahed Khaledi Darvishan; Mohsen Khorsand
Abstract
Measuring soil erosion and sediment yield using different methods is necessary to achieve integrated and reliable information from amount of soil loss. In this regards, the application of new and up-to-date innovative methods is required and important to facilitate the measurements, which leads to increase ...
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Measuring soil erosion and sediment yield using different methods is necessary to achieve integrated and reliable information from amount of soil loss. In this regards, the application of new and up-to-date innovative methods is required and important to facilitate the measurements, which leads to increase the accuracy. However, there is no enough information for the efficiency assessment of innovative techniques. An optic scanner method therefore was used in the present study to measure soil particles detached/transported by splash/runoff. Then, the obtained results were compared with two traditional methods. Including rillmeter and paraffin, which were applied for the measurement of rill erosion in the laboratory. For this study, first a clay loam soil was poured in experimental plots with 30×40 cm dimensions and slope of 20%. The study plots were then exposed to sheet erosion under simulated rainfall intensity of 50 mm h-1 with duration of 20 minutes. In the next stage, two simulated rainfall intensities of 90 and 100 mm h-1 with duration of 20 and 80 minutes, were applied, respectively. The output runoff and sediment were collected and measured. Consequently, the results of optic scanner were compared with sediment measurements and also rillmeter and paraffin methods. Average soil erosion amount at the intensity of 90 mm h-1 with duration of 20 minutes based on optic scanner, rillmeter and paraffin were 283.30±79.73, 35.8±49.27, and 45.93±9.22 gr, whereas average soil erosion amount at the intensity of 100 mm h-1 with duration of 80 minutes were 377.94±274.22, 41.5±45.71, and 46.20±11.45 gr, respectively. According to the results, it was clear that the results of optic scanner was significantly different from other methods and overestimated soil erosion.
Seyed Hamidreza Sadeghi; Zeinab Hazbavi; Mehdi Gholamalifard
Abstract
Developing an understandable and comprehensive conceptual model for watershed health assessment is one of the main priorities of many various managerial and policy making projects in the world including the mega project on the integrated watershed management of Iran. Towards this, the present study as ...
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Developing an understandable and comprehensive conceptual model for watershed health assessment is one of the main priorities of many various managerial and policy making projects in the world including the mega project on the integrated watershed management of Iran. Towards this, the present study as the pioneering research in the country has been conducted to customize the reliability, resilience and vulnerability (RelResVul) conceptual model based on hydrological data to assess watershed health. To this end, firstly the long-term data of discharge of the Shazand Watershed that located in Markazi Province was prepared and the flow duration curve was accordingly derived. Secondly, the appropriate thresholds of low and high flow discharges as prerequisites for watershed health assessment were applied to the RelResVul conceptual model. Hence, the reliability (Rel), resilience (Res) and vulnerability (Vul) indicators were calculated for four node years of 1986, 1998, 2008 and 2014. Finally, the general health state of the Shazand Watershed and its different sub-watersheds was zoned on the basis of two low and high flow discharge criteria through the geometric integrating of the mentioned indicators. The results showed that for the four study years respectively, 59, 53, 68 and 66 % of the watershed in terms of low flow discharge as well as 19, 22, 54 and 38 % of the Shazand Watershed in terms of high flow discharge were situated beyond relatively healthy state. The watershed health index assessment indicated the moderate and relatively healthy states with improving trend for low flow discharge criterion and moderate healthy state with constant trend for high flow discharge criterion. In addition, the results were verified the spatial changeability of watershed health state in different sub-watersheds for the study years.
