Evaluation Method of Soil Surface Roughness after Ditching Operation Based on Wavelet Transform

Abstract

Soil surface roughness (SSR) is an important parameter affecting surface hydrology, erosion, gas exchange and other processes. The surface roughness of the farmland environment is directly related to the tillage process. In order to accurately characterize the random roughness (RR) parameters of the surface after ditching, a three-dimensional (3D) digital model of the surface was obtained by laser scanning under the conditions of an indoor ditching test, and the influence of oriented roughness components formed by removing ridge characteristics on the RR of the surface was analyzed by introducing the wavelet processing method. For this reason, four groups of ditching depths and two types of surface conditions (whether the surface was agglomerated or not) were designed in this paper. By comparing the root mean squared height (RMSH) and correlation length (CL) data calculated before and after wavelet processing under each group of tests, it was concluded that the RMSH values of the four groups before and after wavelet processing all change more than 200%, the change amplitude reached 271.02% under the treatment of 12 cm ditching depth, meanwhile, the average CL value of five cross-sections under each group of ditching depths decreased by 1.43–2.28 times, which proves that the oriented roughness component formed by furrows and ridges has a significant influence on the calculation of RR. By further analyzing the roughness value differences of clods and pits in different directions and local areas before and after wavelet transform, it was shown that the wavelet transform can effectively remove the surface anisotropy characteristics formed in the tillage direction and provide a uniform treatment method for the evaluation of surface RR at different ditching depths.