Premium
Modelling soil erosion and sediment yield at a catchment scale: the case of Masinga catchment, Kenya
Author(s) -
Mutua B. M.,
Klik A.,
Loiskandl W.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
land degradation and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1099-145X
pISSN - 1085-3278
DOI - 10.1002/ldr.753
Subject(s) - surface runoff , erosion , wepp , sediment , hydrology (agriculture) , drainage basin , environmental science , universal soil loss equation , scale (ratio) , distributed element model , soil conservation , soil loss , geology , geography , agriculture , geomorphology , geotechnical engineering , ecology , engineering , cartography , archaeology , electrical engineering , biology
Development of improved soil erosion and sediment yield prediction technology is required to provide catchment stakeholders with the tools they need to evaluate the impact of various management strategies on soil loss and sediment yield in order to plan for the optimal use of the land. In this paper, a newly developed approach is presented to predict the sources of sediment reaching the stream network within Masinga, a large‐scale rural catchment in Kenya. The study applies the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) and a developed hillslope sediment delivery distributed (HSDD) model embedded in a geographical information system (GIS). The HSDD model estimates the sediment delivery ratio (SDR) on a cell‐by‐cell basis using the concept of runoff travel time as a function of catchment characteristics. The model performance was verified by comparing predicted and measured plot runoff and sediment yield. The results show a fairly good relationship between predicted and measured sediment yield ( R 2 =0·82). The predicted results show that the developed modelling approach can be used as a major tool to estimate spatial soil erosion and sediment yield at a catchment scale. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.