EGU General Assembly 2012

Hillslope evolution in Tabernas badlands (SE Spain) since 1995. Erosion pins and laser scanner measurements.
Ashraf Afana1, Yolanda Cantn2 Albert Sol-Benet1,
Acknowledgements: - Spanish National R+D Programme: Special action for laser scanner co-financing (GL2007-29834-E); - Andalusian Regional Government: Projects RNM-3614 and P06-RNM-01732; - EC-DG RTD- 6th Framework Research Programme - project DESIRE (037046); - RESEL (agreement between the Directorate General for Nature Conservation and the CSIC).

Dpt. Desertificacin y GeoEcologa Estacin Experimental de Zonas Aridas Almera - Spain

Dpt. Edafologa y Qumica Agrcola Escuela Politcnica Superior Universidad de Almera Almera - Spain

Introduction Tabernas desert (SE Spain): El Cautivo area

SPAIN

Almeria

Photo Chadwick

Introduction

Tabernas desert: El Cautivo area - Thermomediterranean climate (P = 235 mm, T = 18oC) - Calcitic-gypsiferous mudstones water erosion badlands

Introduction Water-erosion measurement methods: - gauging stations in catchments (> 1991) - erosion pins over different surfaces and hillslopes (> 1995) - splash cups (1996-97) - erosion plots < 1 m2 (1995-1998) - rainfall simulations (several campaigns: 1993, 2000, 2008)

Introduction

Objectives
- To understand the micro-topographical behaviour and effect on soilregolith redistribution at hillslope scale, at both short and long-term. - To know the rates of erosion-deposition in rill and interrill positions.

- To know the relationships of precipitation variables with erosion or sedimentation.

- To check the capacity of digital data captured by laser scanning in quantifying soil water erosion in comparison to a historical data record acquired by erosion-pins.

Methods

S-oriented hillslope, 26, 10 m x 10 m, monitored with erosionpins from 1995 to 2007, then with a laser scanner

Photo 10/10/2005

Methods
1.9 1.1

1.9

1.1

- 81 erosion pins (30 cm, ..aerial part = 10 cm) - separation: 1 m

9.9 9.9

9.1 9.1

Image from a DEM at 1 mm resolution

- Pin-length differences between years. - Overall difference from 1995 to 2011. - Relationships with P parameters (magnitude, intensity).

Methods

From erosion-pins to laser scanner

Since 2009 a laser scanner (Leica ScanStation 2) is been used to acquire the microtopography of the whole studied surface. This instrument measures the time of flight (difference between emission and reception of a laser pulse).

- A DEM at 1 mm resolution is obtained from the point clouds of every scan. - Average topographical attributes (TA) around (r = 5 cm) every erosion-pin are obtained. - Spearman correlations have been calculated to know the relationships between erosion-pin parameters and precipitation variables (magnitude, intensity). - A series of ANOVA to know how erosion-pin parameters (mean, median, max, min, std) are explained by their position rill-interill.

Methods Topographical attributes of erosion pins

- A GLM to check how erosion-sedimentarion might be controled by any of these topographical attributes was performed.

Results

Precipitation data between intervals of erosion-pin measurements

date pin measurement 08/12/1995 20/07/1996 01/04/1997 14/11/1997 05/06/2000 28/06/2001 01/07/2002 01/07/2003 01/09/2004 05/07/2005 21/06/2006 10/07/2007 07/07/2009 17/12/2010 18/11/2011 P interval days P P>3mm P>10mm P>20 mm max P24h I10 > 20 I10 > 40 I5 > 20 (mm) 150.8 206.2 196.6 545.3 188.5 265.1 190.3 347.9 165.0 248.5 158.0 387.3 351.0 148.3 n 44 54 32 159 34 80 48 74 55 75 62 123 83 60 n days 20 16 12 47 15 23 9 24 14 14 12 24 33 14 n days 3 8 8 14 3 5 4 10 7 9 4 10 11 2 n days 0 0 4 4 2 3 2 5 0 3 1 4 3 0 (mm) 15.4 19.4 36.9 39.4 53.3 26.2 54.2 39.0 17.8 34.1 36.4 25.6 35.5 15.1 I5 > 40

n events n events n events n events 2 2 5 5 3 2 2 4 5 4 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 6 6 5 9 7 5 3 6 7 8 1 0 1 1 2 2 4 2 2 2 2 2 5 2 1 0 0 0

----------------------------------------- setting of erosion pins -------------------------------------------------

Results LS point cloud around an erosion-pin

Results Map of overall erosion-deposition in the monitored hillslope

- A single rainfall event (2007) produced in a single pin an erosion of 86 mm, but an overall (all pins) erosion of 6 mm.

- Sixteen years of recordings show an average 3.72 mm of erosion, or 48 t ha-1 (overall rate), annual rate = 3 t ha-1 y-1.

Results

Spearman correlations found between erosion-pins and magnitude of rainfall

State Position
Annual rainfall N days P > 3 mm N days P > 10 mm N days P > 20 mm

NSP
35 22 26 33

InterEvents Erosion Sedimentation Rill Interrill Rill Interrill

15 4 6 0 10 2 21 5 16 1 8 3 12 11 6 7 16 13 11 7 16 9 20 13

Global NSP
4 5 3 3

Erosion Rill Interrill

2 2 2 0 2 1 2 1 1 1 2 0

Sedimentation Rill Interrill

2 0 3 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 3 2

NSP = number of pins significantly related with precipitation parameters

Results

Spearman correlations found between erosion-pins and rain intensity

InterEvents Erosion Sedimentation Rill Interrill Rill Interrill
11 Max P24h Max I5 n events I5 > 20 n events I5 > 40 max I10 n events I10 > 20 n events I10 > 40 n events I10 > 20 Annual rainfall 12 32 37 21 23 30 19 30 35 2 13 9 10 5 6 4 12 7 7 4 12 8 7 4 15 4 11 7 3 6 20 13 4 2 4 2 23 17 53 6 2 0 0 3 6 7 5 49 9 13 7 14 2 2 5 1 23 17 53 6 18 9 4 40 26 2 2 11 10 36 4 13 7 14 31 27 5 4 15 3 43 6 11 7 5 40 26 4 2 27 23 56 6 13 7 5 25 20 9 0 19 17 57 7 16 10 3 30 25 1 1 12 5 15 8 8 40 33

State Position

NSP

NSP

Global Erosion Rill Interrill

9 4

Sedimentation Rill Interrill

3 0 42 34 3

NSP = number of pins significantly related with precipitation parameters

Results ANOVA showing how erosion-pin parameters (min, max, ) are explained by their rill-interill position (measurement intervals).
Min Max St.dev. Median Mean Multiple R Multiple R Adjusted R MS Residual F 0,301854 0,091116 0,078132 0,825056 7,01750 0,347989 0,121097 0,108541 0,074122 9,64470 0,362426 0,131353 0,118944 0,007364 10,58509 0,149207 0,022263 0,008295 0,696803 1,59388 0,109872 0,012072 -0,002041 0,640064 0,85535 p 0,009969 0,002741 0,001757 0,210963 0,358221 Intercept rill/interrill Value F 0,001088 12122,77 0,813854 3,02 p 0,000000 0,016288

ANOVA showing how erosion-pin parameters (min, max, ) are explained by their rill-interril position (all measurement period).
Min Max St.dev. Median Mean Multiple R Multiple R Adjusted R MS Residual F 0,228942 0,052414 0,039434 1075,027 4,037881 0,086711 0,007519 -0,006077 0,128 0,553024 0,266339 0,070936 0,058210 0,008 5,573740 0,145924 0,021294 0,007887 1264,057 1,588258 0,123762 0,015317 0,001828 727,411 1,135541 p 0,048187 0,459471 0,020904 0,211589 0,290108 Value F 0,004063 3382,317 0,874270 1,985
Wilks lambda=.81385, F(5, 66)=3.0191, p=.01629 Effective hypothesis decomposition 2.0

Intercept rill/interrill

p 0,000000 0,091761

1.9

1.8

max-box

1.7

1.6

1.5

1.4

1.3 interrill rill

Results

GLM explaining which topographical attributes explain erosion-deposition

Topo. Attribute MPI CURV PROF SPI LSF Beta () t 1,508 2,18069 None -0,633058 -2,15784 0,527114 2,2947 -2,81 -3,3288 4,879 2,7166 None Beta () None None None ASP 0,2589 None 2,072 0,042432 t p < 0.05 0,033206 0,03476 0,025093 0,001494 0,008605

Minimum Maximum

Inter-events relationships

Mean Median SD

Topo. Attribute Minimum

p < 0.05

Overall relationship (from the whole period)

Maximum Mean Median SD

Conclusions

CONCLUSIONS-1 1.- Caliper measurement of erosion pins in crusted surfaces (marly regoliths) is a problematic methodology: human errors, surface disturbance, etc. However, LS allow precise non-contact measurements to assess both surface changes and soil-regolith erosion. 2.- Pin location in rills or inter-rills explain high variability in measurements: 86 mm in a single rainfall event while the mean for all pins was 6 mm. Sixteen years of recordings show a total average 3.72 mm of erosion (3 t ha-1 y-1). 3.- After 16 years of recordings, rainfall magnitude is only correlated to erosion-sedimentation of a few pins (< 30% of 81), though rainfall intensity is correlated to a higher number of pins (up to 67%).

Conclusions

CONCLUSIONS-2

4.- Only maximum and minimum event-differences are explained by the rill/interrill position of erosion pins; when considering all the measurement period, only minimum event-differences are explained. 5.- Some topographical attributes explain the inter-annual pin measurements but only the aspect explains the global 16-year interval, indicating topography is a key factor in the overall erosion-sedimentation behaviour, and hence in hillslope dynamics.

ashraf@eeza.csic.es ycanton@ual.es albert@eeza.csic.es