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Estimation of soil loss by the WATEM/SEDEM model using an automatic parameter estimation procedure

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Abstract

Soil degradation is a major environmental problem in many parts of the world, including Slovenia. The spatially distributed WATEM/SEDEM model can be used to identify the most critical parts of the catchment with regard to soil erosion. Five Slovenian (Central Europe) catchments with inhomogeneous topography, land use, geological conditions, hydro-meteorological properties and sizes (catchment areas between 1 and 2000 km2) were modeled with calibrated parameters, while the WATEM/SEDEM model was calibrated with an automatic parameter estimation procedure, which is model independent. Both direct and indirect information regarding sediment yields, including turbidity measurements, daily suspended sediment concentration observations and bed load observations, were used for the WATEM/SEDEM model’s calibration. A detailed rainfall erosivity (R) factor map, which was constructed from 5-min rainfall data from 31 pluviographic meteorological stations, was used as one of the inputs for the WATEM/SEDEM model. The calculated mean annual soil loss was between 0.3 and 7.4 t/ha/year, and the sediment delivery ratio (SDR) ranged from 0.07 to 0.22 for 5 modeled catchments. The results indicate that the SDR decreases with increasing catchment area; however, the ratio between the average sediment yield and mean soil erosion obviously depends on many other factors, e.g., topography, climatic and geological conditions. The parcel trap efficiency parameter for forests had the greatest influence on the WATEM/SEDEM model’s outputs in all five case studies.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the Slovenian Environment Agency (ARSO) and Ministry of agriculture and the environment (MKO) for making the relevant data used in this study publically available on their web site. The results of the study are part of the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering’s (UL FGG) work on the European research project SedAlp, which is jointly financed by the European Union through the Alpine Space program and the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) through the research program P2-0180 Water science and technology, and Geotechnics. The research was also partially financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency through the PhD grant of the first author (Bezak N.).

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  1. Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Jamova cesta 2, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Nejc Bezak, Simon Rusjan, Jošt Sodnik & Matjaž Mikoš

  2. Slovenian Environment Agency, Hydrology and State of Environment Office, Vojkova 1b, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Sašo Petan

  3. Water Management Company Kranj (VGP Kranj), Mirka Vadnova 5, 4000, Kranj, Slovenia

    Jošt Sodnik

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  1. Nejc Bezak
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  5. Matjaž Mikoš
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Correspondence to Nejc Bezak.

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Bezak, N., Rusjan, S., Petan, S. et al. Estimation of soil loss by the WATEM/SEDEM model using an automatic parameter estimation procedure. Environ Earth Sci 74, 5245–5261 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4534-0

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