Models of Gully Erosion by Water

Abstract

The type of modelling of gully erosion for the projects of land management depend on the targets and degree of details of these projects, as well as on the availability of input data. The set of four models cover a broad range of possible applications. The most detailed information about predicted gullies, change of their depth, width, and volume throughout the gully lifetime is obtained with the gully erosion and thermoerosion dynamic model. The calculation requires the time series of surface runoff, catchment relief, and lithology and the complex of coefficients and parameters, some of which can be estimated only by model calibration on the measurements. The difficulty in obtaining some of these coefficients makes it necessary to use less complicated models. The stable gully model predicts final gully depths and widths and is useful for projects where only stable gully geometry is used. The modified area–slope approach is used in the two simplest models, where the position on the slopes of possible gullies is calculated without details of the gully geometry. One of these models calculates total erosion potential, taking into account all water runoff transforming a gully. The second calculates gully erosion risk, using the information about slope inclination, contributing area and maximum surface runoff.