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Short‐term erosion rates from a 7 Be inventory balance
Author(s) -
Wilson Christopher G.,
Matisoff Gerald,
Whiting Peter J.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
earth surface processes and landforms
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.294
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1096-9837
pISSN - 0197-9337
DOI - 10.1002/esp.509
Subject(s) - erosion , surface runoff , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , loess , deposition (geology) , storm , sediment , geology , geomorphology , geotechnical engineering , ecology , biology , oceanography
Detailed soil erosion studies benet from the ability to quantify the magnitude of erosion over time scales appropriate to the process. An inventory balance for 7 Be was used to calculate sediment erosion in a 30·73 m 2 plot during a series of runoff‐producing thunderstorms occurring over three days at the Deep Loess Research Station in Treynor, Iowa, USA. The inventory balance included determination of the pre‐ and post‐storm 7 Be inventories in the soil, the atmospheric inux of 7 Be during the event, and proles of the 7 Be activity in the soil following the atmospheric deposition. The erosion calculated in the plot using the 7 Be inventory balance was 0·058 g cm −2 , which is 23 per cent of the annual average erosion determined using 137 Cs inventories. The calculated erosion from the mass balance is similar to the 0·059 g cm −2 of erosion estimated from the amount of sediment collected at the outlet of the 6 ha eld during the study period and the delivery ratio (0·64). The inventory balance of 7 Be provides a new means for evaluating soil erosion over the time period most relevant to quantifying the prediction of erosion from runoff. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.