A Study to Develop Monthly Cover Management Factor Database for Monthly Soil Loss Estimation

Soil loss is an accompanying phenomenon of hydrologic cycle in watersheds. Both rainfall drops and runoff lead to soil particle detachment, the detached soil particles are transported into streams by runoff. Here, a sediment-laden water problem can be issued if soil particles are severely detached and transported into stream in the watershed. There is a need to estimate or simulate soil erosion in watersheds so that an adequate plan to manage soil erosion can be established. Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), therefore, was developed and modified by many researchers for their watersheds, moreover the simple model, USLE, has been employed in many hydrologic models for soil erosion simulations. While the USLE has been applied even in South-Korea, the model is often regarded as being limited in applications for the watersheds in South-Korea since monthly conditions against soil erosion on soil surface are not capable to represent. Thus, the monthly USLE factors against soil erosion, soil erodibility and crop management factors, were established for four major watersheds, which are Daecheong-dam, Soyang-dam, Juam-dam, and Imha-dam watersheds. The monthly factors were established by recent fifteen years from 2000 to 2015. Five crops were selected for the monthly crop management factor establishments. Soil loss estimations with the modified factors were compared to conventional approach that is average annual estimations. The differences ranged from 9.3 % (Juam-dam watershed) to 28.1 % (Daecheong-dam watershed), since the conventional approaches were not capable of seasonally and regionally different conditions.