Naslov
Rainfall Erosivity in Europe

Autori
Panagos, Panos ; Ballabio, Cristiano ; Borrelli, Pasquale ; Meusburger, Katrin ; Klik, Andreas ; Rousseva, Svetla ; Perčec Tadić, Melita ; Michaelides, Silas ; Hrabalíková, Michaela ; Olsen, Preben ; Aalto, Juha ; Lakatos, Mónika ; Rymszewicz, Anna ; Dumitrescu, Alexandru ; Beguería, Santiago ; Alewell, Christine

Izvornik
Science of the total environment (0048-9697) 511 (2015); 801-814

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, članak, znanstveni

Ključne riječi
RUSLE; R-factor; rainstorm; rainfall intensity; modelling; erosivity density; precipitation; soil erosion; erosivity map

Sažetak
Rainfall is one the main drivers of soil erosion. The erosive force of rainfall is expressed as rainfall erosivity. Rainfall erosivity considers the rainfall amount and intensity, and is most commonly expressed as the R-factor in the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE and its revised version, RUSLE). At national and continental levels, the scarce availability of data obliges soil erosion modellers to estimate this factor based only on rainfall data with low temporal resolution (daily, monthly or even annual averages). The purpose of this study is to assess rainfall erosivity in Europe in the form of the RUSLE R- factor, based on the best available datasets that have a temporal resolution of 30 minutes. Data have been collected from 1, 541 precipitation stations in all European Union (EU) Member States and Switzerland, with temporal resolutions of 5 to 60 minutes. The R- factor values calculated from precipitation data of different temporal resolutions were normalised to R-factor values with temporal resolutions of 30 minutes using linear regression functions. Precipitation time series ranged from a minimum of 5 years to maximum of 40 years. The average time series per precipitation station is around 17.1 years, the vast majority including the first decade of the 21st century. Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) has been used to interpolate the R-factor station values to a European rainfall erosivity map at 1 km resolution. The covariates used for the R-factor interpolation were climatic data (total precipitation, seasonal precipitation, precipitation of driest/wettest months, average temperature), terrain features and latitude/longitude. The mean R-factor for the EU plus Switzerland is 722 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1, with the highest values (>1, 000 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1) in the Mediterranean and alpine regions and the lowest (<500 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1) in the Nordic countries.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Fizika, Geologija, Poljoprivreda (agronomija)

POVEZANOST RADA