High rates of runoff and soil loss occur in temperate areas in late winter and early spring. A low-intensity rainfall simulator and a snowmelt simulator were developed to study soil erosion by snowmelt and/or spring rainfall on a sandy loam soil of southern Quebec. Erosive agent, land slope, thaw depth of partly frozen soil, and intensity and duration of the event were studied in the laboratory using the simulators. All these factors had significant effects on soil erosion. Sediment concentration, soil loss rate, and total soil loss increased with increasing land slope, thaw depth, and intensity, duration, and impact energy of the erosive agent. Duration showed a significant interaction with each of the other factors. interaction between thaw depth and intensity of the event was significant under both snowmelt and rainfall simulation, whereas interaction between land slope and intensity was significant under rainfall simulation, but not under snowmelt simulation. Erosive agent also interacted with each of the other factors. All these interactions increased soil loss. The presence of a frozen sublayer interacted with the other factors and greatly increased runoff, sediment concentration and total soil loss. Rainfall caused more soil loss than did snowmelt under the same conditions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.28449 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Geng, Guoqiang |
| Contributors | Mehuyr, G. R. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Natural Resource Sciences.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001443082, proquestno: NN00092, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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