DOI: 10.5194/hess-18-3763-2014
Scopus记录号: 2-s2.0-84907906516
论文题名: Soil erosion by snow gliding - A first quantification attempt in a subalpine area in Switzerland
作者: Meusburger K ; , Leitinger G ; , Mabit L ; , Mueller M ; H ; , Walter A ; , Alewell C
刊名: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
ISSN: 10275606
出版年: 2014
卷: 18, 期: 9 起始页码: 3763
结束页码: 3775
语种: 英语
Scopus关键词: Snow gliding
; Soil erosion
; Switzerland
; cesium isotope
; erosion rate
; fallout
; land use
; Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation
; sediment yield
; snow cover
; soil conservation
; soil erosion
; subalpine environment
; water erosion
; Switzerland
英文摘要: Snow processes might be one important driver of soil erosion in Alpine grasslands and thus the unknown variable when erosion modelling is attempted. The aim of this study is to assess the importance of snow gliding as a soil erosion agent for four different land use/land cover types in a subalpine area in Switzerland. We used three different approaches to estimate soil erosion rates: sediment yield measurements in snow glide depositions, the fallout radionuclide 137Cs and modelling with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). RUSLE permits the evaluation of soil loss by water erosion, the 137Cs method integrates soil loss due to all erosion agents involved, and the measurement of snow glide deposition sediment yield can be directly related to snow-glide-induced erosion. Further, cumulative snow glide distance was measured for the sites in the winter of 2009/2010 and modelled for the surrounding area and long-term average winter precipitation (1959-2010) with the spatial snow glide model (SSGM). Measured snow glide distance confirmed the presence of snow gliding and ranged from 2 to 189 cm, with lower values on the north-facing slopes. We observed a reduction of snow glide distance with increasing surface roughness of the vegetation, which is an important information with respect to conservation planning and expected and ongoing land use changes in the Alps. Snow glide erosion estimated from the snow glide depositions was highly variable with values ranging from 0.03 to 22.9 t ha-1yr-1in the winter of 2012/2013. For sites affected by snow glide deposition, a mean erosion rate of 8.4 t ha-1yr-1was found. The difference in long-term erosion rates determined with RUSLE and 137Cs confirms the constant influence of snow-glide-induced erosion, since a large difference (lower proportion of water erosion compared to total net erosion) was observed for sites with high snow glide rates and vice versa. Moreover, the difference between RUSLE and 137Cs erosion rates was related to the measured snow glide distance (R2= 0.64; p < 0.005) and to the snow deposition sediment yields (R2= 0.39; p = 0.13). The SSGM reproduced the relative difference of the measured snow glide values under different land uses and land cover types. The resulting map highlighted the relevance of snow gliding for large parts of the investigated area. Based on these results, we conclude that snow gliding appears to be a crucial and non-negligible process impacting soil erosion patterns and magnitude in subalpine areas with similar topographic and climatic conditions. © Author(s) 2014. Citation statistics:
资源类型: 期刊论文
标识符: http://119.78.100.158/handle/2HF3EXSE/78127
Appears in Collections: 气候变化事实与影响
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作者单位: Environmental Geosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria; Soil and Water Management and Crop Nutrition Laboratory, Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria
Recommended Citation:
Meusburger K,, Leitinger G,, Mabit L,et al. Soil erosion by snow gliding - A first quantification attempt in a subalpine area in Switzerland[J]. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences,2014-01-01,18(9)