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Effects of Brush to Grass Conversion on the Hydrology and Erosion of a Semiarid Southwestern Rangeland Watershed

From the Proceedings of the 1977 Meetings of the Arizona Section - American Water Resources Assn. and the Hydrology Section - Arizona Academy of Science - April 15-16, 1977, Las Vegas, Nevada / Increased nutritional and economic demands for agricultural products have dictated the need for greater and more efficient use of western grass forage. Vegetation manipulation is the quickest and most economical means of increasing forage. However , the hydrologic effects must be taken into consideration before embarking on a large scale vegetation manipulated program. This study discusses the hydrologic and erosion changes measured from a 110-acre semiarid watershed which was converted from brush to grass by root plowing and seeding. Significant changes were observed in rainfall-runoff relationships as average summer runoff was considerably in excess of predictions. Sediment yield also varied, and both of these results were tied to the change in vegetative cover and post conversion rainfall conditions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/301028
Date16 April 1977
CreatorsSimanton, J. R., Osborn, H. B., Renard, K. G.
ContributorsUnited States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Western Region, Southwest Watershed Research Center, Tucson, Arizona 85705
PublisherArizona-Nevada Academy of Science
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, Proceedings
RightsCopyright ©, where appropriate, is held by the author.

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