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Estimating the USLE Soil Erodibility Factor in Sicily, South Italy

Article  in  Applied engineering in agriculture · March 2012

DOI: 10.13031/2013.41347

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 ESTIMATING THE USLE SOIL ERODIBILITY
FACTOR IN SICILY, SOUTH ITALY
V. Bagarello, C. Di Stefano, V. Ferro, G. Giordano, M. Iovino, V. Pampalone

ABSTRACT. The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is used by professionals and technicians to predict soil loss by water
erosion and to establish soil conservation measures. One of the key elements of the USLE is the K factor, which is a measure
of the soil erodibility. Given the difficulty in collecting sufficient data to adequately measure K, early in the USLE's history
the soil erodibility nomograph method was developed to allow estimation of K based on standard soil properties. Since the
nomograph approach was developed based on a small number of soils in the United States, it is necessary for other contexts
to check the nomograph's ability to predict the soil's true erodibility. Considering that soil organic matter data are difficult
to obtain, an estimation procedure of the soil erodibility factor, K, based only on soil textural data is desirable. In this
investigation, the soil erodibility factor was first experimentally determined for the clay soil at the Sparacia (Sicily)
experimental station. A relatively low value (0.039 t ha h ha‐1MJ ‐1mm‐1) was determined, and summer erodibility was found
to be more than twice the value of winter erodibility. This measured K value was 1.85 times the nomograph K, which for many
practical applications is not a large difference. Finally, using 1813 data points, a procedure for estimating K using only soil
textural data was developed for Sicily. The errors of the predictions did not exceed a factor of two and three for 94.4% and
99.2% of the data points, respectively, suggesting a satisfactory ability of the developed procedure to yield an estimate of K
with a reduced input dataset.
Keywords. Soil erosion, USLE, Erodibility factor.

S
oil erosion is a major environmental threat to the
sustainability and productive capacity of
agriculture, and available worldwide estimates
suggest that arable land is lost at a rate of more than
10 million ha per year (Pimentel et al., 1995). Predicting soil
erosion is necessary for implementing soil conservation
measures and in obtaining reliable predictions of their
effectiveness for an area of interest.
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE; Wischmeier
and Smith, 1978) and its revised version (RUSLE, Renard
et al., 1997) are still commonly used to predict plot scale soil
erosion, despite the availability of many alternatives (Jetten
and Favis‐Mortlock, 2006). According to several authors, the
USLE/RUSLE are still popular because they i) combine
acceptable accuracy with relative simplicity, ii) have the
ability to use quite basic data, and iii) are the only models that
can rely on a global (i.e. worldwide distributed) dataset
(Risse et al., 1993; Rosewell, 1993; Liu et al., 2001; Hann and
Morgan, 2006; Salvador Sanchis et al., 2008).
One of the difficulties for those using the USLE is
estimation of the soil erodibility factor, K, which is defined
Submitted for review in May 2011 as manuscript number SW 9197;
approved for publication by the Soil & Water Division of ASABE in
December 2011.
The authors are Vincenzo Bagarello, Associate Professor, Costanza
Di Stefano, Researcher, Vito Ferro, Full Professor, Giuseppe Giordano,
Full Professor, Massimo Iovino, Associate Professor, and Vincenzo
Pampalone, Postdoctoral Fellow; Dipartimento dei Sistemi
Agro‐Ambientali, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, 13, 90128,
Palermo, Italy. Corresponding author: Vincenzo Bagarello, Dipartimento
dei Sistemi Agro‐Ambientali, Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze,
13, 90128, Palermo, Italy; phone: 0039‐091‐7028108; e‐mail:
vincenzo.bagarello@unipa.it.
on the basis of collecting storm and erosion data for many
years. In the simpler alternative nomograph procedure from
Wischmeier et al. (1971), several measured soil properties
are combined according to a pre‐established scheme to
determine K. In particular, the procedure needs knowledge of
soil particle size distribution (PSD), organic matter (OM)
content, and soil structure and permeability. The
experimental effort to determine these soil characteristics
may increase substantially with the spatial scale of interest
(plot, hillslope, watershed, region) in order to take into
account spatial variability of soil properties in the studied
area. In this case, reducing the number of input variables in
the evaluation procedure of K can be practically attractive for
limiting laboratory analyses and resulting costs. In particular,
excluding OM content from prediction of K may be desirable
for work on large scales, given that OM data are often missing
in regional soil maps (Zacharias and Wessolek, 2007).
Attempts to simplify the K evaluation procedure have been
carried out in the past and simplified relationships have been
proposed for predicting K values of soils for which data are
limited (Römkens et al., 1986, 1997). One of these
relationships was included in the RUSLE manual (Renard
et al., 1997).
Estimating the K factor on the basis of reduced
experimental information makes sense if the procedure
developed by Wischmeier et al. (1971) allows for satisfactory
description of true soil erodibility. The nomograph was
developed with specific reference to U.S. soils and therefore
it needs testing in other areas of the world which requires the
use of experimental data for those areas. A comparison
between the experimental erodibility factor and the one
estimated by the nomograph should be carried out for
different soils, but even a check limited to a single soil may
contribute to the ability to better assess the applicability of

Applied Engineering in Agriculture

Vol. 28(2): 199‐206 E 2012 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers ISSN 0883-8542 199
the nomograph, taking into account that a single
measurement of K implies an onerous and prolonged (many
years) experiment at the plot scale. This check is particularly
important for clay soils, which were not included in the group
of soils for which the nomograph is expected to be well suited
(Römkens et al., 1997).
An additional justification for development of an
estimation procedure for K in Sicily is that, for 199 Sicilian
samples, the soil physical quality experimentally determined
in terms of S‐index (Dexter, 2004) showed a tendency to
decrease as the nomograph K increased (Bagarello et al.,
2009). In other terms, the nomograph K seems to have some
potential to describe soil physical quality with a reduced
sampling and laboratory effort, independently of the soil
erosion predictive ability of the USLE.
The general objective of this investigation was to derive
a method to predict the soil erodibility factor of the USLE in
Sicily with limited soil data. The specific objectives were to:
i) experimentally determine the K factor for the clay soil at
the “Sparacia” experimental station and compare it to the
nomograph value; and ii) develop a new procedure to
estimate K based only on soil textural data for Sicily, using
a data base of 1813 individual measurements of PSD and OM
content distributed throughout the island.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
MEASUREMENT OF THE SOIL ERODIBILITY FACTOR
The investigation was carried out at the experiment station
for soil erosion measurement “Sparacia” of the Agricultural
Faculty of the Palermo University, located in western Sicily,
Italy, approximately 100 km south of Palermo (Bagarello
et al., 2008, 2010; Bagarello and Ferro, 2010). The soil is a
Vertic Haploxerept (Soil Survey Staff, 2006) with a clay
texture (62% clay, 33% silt, 5% sand). The soil is massive in
winter, being wet and fully swelled, but it develops a
polygonal pattern of surface shrinkage cracks in late spring
or early summer due to drying. The gravel content is
negligible. Rainfall data were measured at 1‐min time
intervals by a recording rain gauge located in the
experimental area. The area has a typical Mediterranean
semi‐arid climate with a mean annual rainfall of
approximately 700 mm and a dry period extending for up to
seven months (April‐October).
Data for this investigation were obtained from plots
installed on a 14.9% slope, maintained periodically in a
cultivated fallow using hand implements or a powered
cultivator operated in the up and down direction. In
particular, soil loss data were collected from six plots of 8 m
width × 22 m length. These plots produced 42 events of
measurable runoff and soil loss during the period from
January 2000 to January 2009. An additional two 2‐m wide
× 22‐m long plots produced seven measurable runoff/soil
loss events from September 2007 to January 2009. Rills were
obliterated at the end of each erosive event, mainly using
hand implements, in an attempt to establish similar
conditions (i.e., reasonably smoothed soil surface) at the
beginning of each event.
For a given erosive event, the rainfall erosivity index, Re,
was calculated (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) and the soil
loss of each individual plot was determined by measuring
sediment concentration in the storage tanks according to the
200
procedure developed by Bagarello and Ferro (1998) and
Bagarello et al. (2004). A representative soil loss value at the
event temporal scale, Ae (t ha‐1), was obtained for a given plot
size (i.e., given width and length) by averaging the available
replicated data. Taking into account that, in the USLE, the
geometric characteristics of the plot are only represented in
terms of plot length, l, and also considering that 2‐m wide
plots are expected to give long‐term results representative of
wider plots (Bagarello et al., 2011), the measured soil loss
from the narrow (2 m) and the wide (8 m) plots was averaged
to obtain a single value of Ae for a given erosive event.
The topographic factor, S (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978),
was calculated as (Nearing, 1997):
17
S = −1.5 + (1)
1 + exp(2.3 − 6.1 sin β)
where b (°) is the slope angle (S = 1.86 for a 14.9% slope
steepness). A normalized soil loss, i.e., the soil loss from the
unit plot (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978), AeUP (t ha‐1), was
calculated from each individual Ae value according to the
following relationship:
Ae
AeUP = (2)
S
since the length of the considered plots was practically
coincident with the one of the unit plot.
The experimental value of the mean annual soil erodibility
factor, K, was determined by the following relationship
(Foster et al., 1981):
N
∑ (AeUP )
j =1 (3)
K=
N
∑ (Re )
j =1
where N is the number of erosive events occurred during a
multiyear period. This equation was actually the one used to
determine K by the designers of the USLE, and it was also
applied in other investigations to determine the temporal
variability of the soil erodibility factor (Mutchler and Carter,
1983; Bagarello et al., 2008). Equation 3 was also used to
determine the seasonal values of the soil erodibility factor
(Kw, wet season; Kd, dry season). In this case, N in equation 3
was the number of erosive events occurring in the considered
season (November to April for Kw and May to October for Kd)
during the multi‐year period. Only two periods of the year
were considered since sample sizes were not large enough to
allow analysis at a more detailed temporal scale, such as the
monthly one. Annual values of K (Ka), Kw (Kwa), and Kd (Kda)
were also calculated by equation 3. These last two variables
were determined for six years, characterized by one or more
erosive events in each season.
The USLE scheme was considered in this investigation to
determine the soil erodibility factor because the K calculation
depends on the estimating procedure of Re and almost all
available data on rainfall erosivity in Sicily were expressed
in terms of USLE's R factor (Ferro et al., 1991, 1999;
Bagarello and D'Asaro, 1994; D'Asaro et al., 2007). A more
important reason from a scientific point of view was that
recent investigations carried out in Sicily confirmed the
APPLIED ENGINEERING IN AGRICULTURE
USLE's ability to predict rainfall energy on the basis of the
measured intensities (Ferro et al., 2008).
ESTIMATION OF THE SOIL ERODIBILITY FACTOR
A data set including surface soil samples collected at
1813 sampling points distributed throughout Sicily (fig. 1)
was used for this investigation. For each sampling point, the
PSD was measured following H2O2 pretreatment to eliminate
organic matter and clay deflocculation by sodium
metaphospate and mechanical agitation. Fine size fractions
were determined by the hydrometer method, whereas the
coarse fractions were obtained by mechanical sieving using
mesh sizes of 2000, 860, 425, 250, 106, and 75 mm. Eight fine
fraction data points were obtained by the hydrometer method
measuring the suspension density after 2, 5, 15, 30, 60, 180,
1440, and 2880 min. For a few samples, a laser diffraction
technique was applied and the conversion relationships
developed by Di Stefano et al. (2010) were used to assure
homogeneity within the data set in terms of considered
particle size fractions for the analysis. Particle size fraction
data were classified according to the USDA standards (Gee
and Bauder, 1986). For each soil sample, the percentage of
silt + very fine sand particles (equivalent particle diameter
ranging from 0.002 mm to 0.1 mm), f, and the percentage of
coarse sand (0.1 to 2 mm), g, were also determined using the
measured PSD. The geometric mean particle diameter, Dg
(mm), was calculated according to the following relationship
(Shirazi and Boersma, 1984):
⎛ Ns ⎞ RUSLE (Römkens et al., 1997).
D g = exp⎢ 0.01 ∑ Fi ln mi ⎟ (4)
⎢ ⎟
⎝ i =1 ⎠ units), estimated by the following relationships (Römkens
where Fi (%) is the primary particle size fraction, mi (mm) is
the arithmetic mean of the particle size limits of that size, i
is the size fraction number and Ns is the total number of size
fractions. Following Verstraeten et al. (2002), the particle
size classes clay, silt and sand (<0.002, 0.002 to 0.05, and
0.05 to 2.0 mm) were considered to calculate Dg. The total
organic carbon content, TOC (%), was determined by the
Walkley‐Black method and the organic matter, OM, content
was estimated to be equal to 1.724 times the measured TOC
value (Nelson and Sommers, 1996).
For each sample, the structure index, SS, of the nomograph
by Wischmeier et al. (1971) was estimated using the
available soil texture information and the classification
reported in figure 2, based on the USDA texture triangle
(Giordano et al., 2004). In particular, the structure index SS
= 1 (very fine granular) was associated with sandy, loamy
Figure 1. Sampling points in Sicily for determination of the USLE's soil
erodibility factor.
Vol. 28(2): 199‐206
sand and sandy loam soils; SS = 2 (fine granular) was used for
sandy clay, sandy clay loam, loam, silt loam and silt soils;
SS = 3 (medium or coarse granular) was applied to clay loam
and silty clay loam soils; and SS = 4 (blocky, platy or massive)
was used for clay and silty clay soils. For establishing the
permeability index, PP, of each sampled soil, the average
class values of saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, Ks,
proposed by Carsel and Parrish (1988) were used. The USDA
soil texture classes were grouped according to decreasing
values of Ks. For each considered textural group, table 1 lists
the expected range of Ks values and the corresponding PP
index.
The soil erodibility factor, K (t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1), and its
first approximation, K' (Wischmeier et al., 1971), were
calculated by the nomograph of Wischmeier et al. (1971).
Relating both SS and PP to soil texture might induce some
criticism since the actual soil structural and permeability
characteristics are not considered in the determination of K.
However, a soil survey is generally considered to be enough
to estimate structure and permeability categories, since SS
and PP can be estimated using qualitative information
(Wischmeier et al., 1971). Soil texture is known to be an
important factor controlling soil structure (e.g., Hillel, 1998)
and the SS and PP indices have a reduced impact on the
estimated erodibility factor, mainly depending on soil
textural and OM characteristics. Therefore, the applied
procedure was considered to be physically reasonable and
objectively repeatable. A similar approach was used in the
The nomograph K values were compared with the
additional erodibility values, KR86 and KR97 (both in SI
et al., 1986; 1997):
⎡ ⎛ log D + 1.519 ⎞ 2 ⎤
⎪ 1 g
KR86 0.0035 + 0.0388 exp − ⎢⎢
= ⎟ ⎥ (5)
⎪ 2⎝ 0.7584 ⎟ ⎥
⎣ ⎠ ⎦
⎡ ⎛ log D + 1.659 ⎞ 2 ⎤
1 g
K R97 = 0.0034 + 0.0405 exp ⎪− ⎢ ⎟ ⎥ (6)
⎪ 2 ⎢⎝ 0.7101 ⎟ ⎥
⎠ ⎦
⎣
% silt
% clay
% sand
1 very fine granular 3 medium or coarse granular
2 fine granular 4 blocky, platy or massive
Figure 2. Soil structure index, SS, classification.
201
 Table 1. Proposed ranges of saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, Ks,
values according to Carsel and Parrish (1988) and permeability
index, PP, for the considered groups of soils.
Soil Type Ks (cm s‐1)
Sandy loam, Loamy sand, Sand 10‐3 - 10‐2
Silt loam, Loam, Sandy clay loam 10‐4 - 10‐3
Clay, Silty clay loam, Clay loam, Sandy clay, Silt 10‐5 - 10‐4
Silty clay 10‐6 - 10‐5
Equation 5 was obtained by using data from 249 soils
worldwide (Verstraeten et al., 2002). Equation 6, which was
included in the RUSLE manual (Renard et al., 1997), was
deduced on the basis of measured K values for 225 soils.
According to Römkens et al. (1997), equations 5 and 6 yield
values of K for classes of soils. However, individual K values
may have more practical interest than a mean representative
value for a given textural class, since USLE and RUSLE were
developed to be applied at a local (plot) scale, and a correct
estimate of individual values implies a correct estimate of the
mean. Therefore equations 5 and 6 were applied at the
sampling point scale and their performances were assessed
using the Nash‐Suttcliffe efficiency index, NSEI (Nash and
Suttcliffe, 1970):
N
∑ (Ym − Yes ) 2
i =1
NSEI = 1 −
N loss by a professional or a technician using the nomograph.
∑(Ym − Ym )
2
i =1
in which N is the number of considered data points, Ym and
Yes are the measured (calculated, in this investigation; i.e. the
nomograph K) and the corresponding estimated (KR86 or
KR97) soil erodibility factor values, respectively, and Y is
m
the mean of the measured values. A value of NSEI = 1 is
indicative of a perfect correspondence between measured
and predicted values while a value of NSEI = 0 suggests that
the model prediction is no more accurate than the mean of the
observed values. A NSEI value < 0 suggests that the observed
mean is better than the predictions.
In another analysis, however, the correspondence between
the two approaches (nomograph, eqs. 5 or 6) was determined
with reference to soils grouped by textural characteristics. In
particular, the experimental range of log Dg was subdivided
into 10 intervals of equal magnitude and the median of the
nomograph K, calculated for each established interval, was
compared with the corresponding medians of KR86 and K R97.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
MEASUREMENT OF THE SOIL ERODIBILITY FACTOR
For the considered investigation period, R was equal to
779 MJ mm ha‐1h‐1year‐1. For the Sparacia's soil, the
nomograph by Wischmeier et al. (1971) yielded a value of K
equal to 0.021 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1 and the experimentally
determined soil erodibility factor was equal to 0.0389 t ha h
ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1. In a previous investigation carried out on the
22‐m long plots with five years of data, Bagarello et al.
(2008) obtained K = 0.0405 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1. Therefore,
including additional events in the database did not
appreciably modify the measurement of K, which can be
202
considered reasonably representative for the sampled site.
The annual values of the soil erodibility factor, Ka, varied
between 0.00058 and 0.075 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1 with a ratio
PP between the two extremes (130.7) much higher than the one
2 (6.7) obtained by Bagarello et al. (2008). Therefore, a
3 reasonably stable mean annual soil erodibility factor was
4 obtained notwithstanding that variability of the annual values
5 was not fully represented in the available dataset.
The experimental erodibility factor obtained in this
investigation was considered to be reliable since it was
slightly lower than the maximum possible value (0.042 in SI
units), estimated for this soil with the relationship by Torri
et al. (1997) as a function of the clay content of the soil,
developed with reference to a global dataset of soil
erodibility factor values. If the range of possible K values is
partitioned into four classes (i.e., low erodibility, K < 0.0225;
relatively low, K = 0.0225‐0.045; relatively high, K =
0.045‐0.0675; and high, K > 0.0675 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1), it
can be suggested that this clay soil was characterized by a
relatively low erodibility, probably because the high
cohesive forces between particles oppose particle
detachment.
The discrepancy between the experimental and the
predicted erodibility by a factor of 1.85 was considered not
to be substantial. Given the multiplicative nature of the
USLE, a true erodibility 1.85 times higher than the one given
by the nomograph implies an equal error in the estimated soil
(7)
According to Foster et al. (1981), “low” erosivity (R = 300 MJ
mm ha‐1h‐1year‐1) and erodibility (K = 0.01 t ha h
ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1) values yield a unit plot soil loss prediction of
3 t ha‐1year‐1, whereas “high” R and K values (8000 and 0.06,
respectively, in SI units) yield 480 t ha‐1year‐1. The ratio
between high and low unit plot soil loss is 160 or probably
much more, given for example that possible K values for
agricultural soils can theoretically vary from near zero to
0.09 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1 (Foster et al., 1981). It therefore
seems reasonable to suggest that an uncertainty in the K
factor prediction by a factor of less than two does not
compromise estimation of, at least, the order of magnitude of
soil loss. The discrepancy observed in this investigation
might depend on the fact that, in the Sicilian context, the
USLE did not work perfectly because of differences in
rainfall, dominant hydrological processes and landscape
diversity as compared to the eastern United States
(Boardman, 2006). Other possible factors are the
unsuitability of the nomograph to represent erodibility of
clay soils, or the circumstance that the sampled plots had a
greater slope (14.9%) than the unit plot (9%), on which K
should be measured (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978). This last
difference is irrelevant only in the case that cannot still be
verified, of a perfect description of slope steepness effects on
soil loss by equation 1. Plots of 22 m have been recently
realized on other slopes differing in steepness at Sparacia,
with the objective to test slope steepness effects in the near
future, once a reasonably representative number of erosive
events has been sampled.
The fact that a single station for soil erosion measurement
was operating in Sicily precluded the possibility to generalize
the testing results. However, locally collected data were
encouraging, since they suggested that the nomograph was
practically usable for a clay soil, frequent in hilly areas of
Sicily, and not included in the original database. In other
APPLIED ENGINEERING IN AGRICULTURE
words, the only possible experimental check of the procedure
by Wischmeier et al. (1971) was compatible with the decision
to simplify the estimation procedure of K of the nomograph.
The Kd/Kw ratio was equal to 2.26 (Kd = 0.0504, Kw =
0.0222, SI units), suggesting that the soil was more erodible
in the dry period than the wet one. Erodibility was less
variable in the wet period (ratio between the maximum and
the minimum annual value = 70.7) than the dry one (ratio =
229.0). The Kda/Kwa ratio varied widely from year to year
(from 0.024 to 129.9), but a dry soil erodibility higher than
the wet soil one was the most common result, occurring in
four of the six considered years. The ratio between Kda and
Kwa was correlated with the rainfall erosivity of the wet
period (Rwa; coefficient of determination, R2 = 0.54,
coefficient of correlation > 0, P = 0.05) by a decreasing
relationship (fig. 3) but not with the erosivity of the dry period
(Rda; R2 = 0.03) or the Rda/Rwa ratio (R2 = 0.06). Note that,
for this period, the mean erosivity was higher in the dry
season (Rd = 784, SI units) than the wet one (Rw = 493, SI
units). Variation of soil erodibility during the year has been
detected in several investigations (Mutchler and Carter,
1983; Zanchi, 1988; Torri et al., 2006), but the factors causing
this form of variability have not been completely established.
According to Salvador Sanchis et al. (2008), soil aggregate
stability is probably the most important parameter
determining seasonal changes in soil erodibility. Soil
aggregates are more stable in a wetter situation, and high air
temperatures and lack of rain influence aggregate stability
negatively (Boix‐Fayos et al., 1998, 2001). In the eastern
Iberian Peninsula, aggregates tested from an initially moist
condition were more stable than air dried aggregates (Cerdà,
1998). However, data by Mutchler and Carter (1983) in the
United States, and by Zanchi (1988) and Torri et al. (2006)
in Italy, suggested a higher erodibility in winter than in
summer. A possible explanation is that soil shear strength
generally decreased as soil moisture increased, which
resulted in an increase in soil erodibility (Al‐Durrah and
Bradford, 1981; Hussein et al., 2007). Therefore, the
conclusion for the investigated clay soil was that soil
aggregate stability had a larger impact on erodibility as
compared with soil shear strength. A condition for the
occurrence of Kwa > Kda was a high rainfall erosivity in the
wet period, probably because soil shear strength was greatly
reduced in this case.
1000
y = 73.982e-0.007x
100 R@ = 0.5385
10
K da / K wa
ESTIMATION OF THE SOIL ERODIBILITY FACTOR
Table 2 provides the summary statistics of the data used
in this investigation and also summarizes both the first
approximation, K', and the final value, K, of the nomograph
soil erodibility. According to the K results, the Sicilian soils
are characterized, on average, by a relatively low erodibility.
The ratio between the maximum and the minimum K factor
was equal to 13.4, suggesting a moderate variability of the
soil erodibility factor in Sicily.
Equations 5 and 6 have a similar form but they do not
coincide. In particular, in the experimental range 0.002 < Dg
< 0.99 mm of this investigation, equation 5 yielded different
K predictions as compared with equation 6 by a maximum
percentage of 45%. In addition, the maximum predicted soil
erodibility factor (KR86 = 0.0423 for Dg = 0.030 mm and KR97
= 0.0439 for Dg = 0.022 mm) was appreciably lower than the
maximum possible K value, equal to 0.09 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1
(Wischmeier et al., 1971; Foster et al., 1981).
Figure 4 compares equations 5 and 6 with the (Dg , K of the
nomograph) data pairs of this investigation. A noticeable
scattering of the data points was detected on the Dg , K plane
and very low values of NSEI (0.028 for KR86 and ‐0.004 for
KR97) were obtained, showing that the proposed relationships
cannot be used to obtain reliable estimates of the soil
erodibility factor of the nomograph at a selected sampling
point. This result may be explained by the origin of the tested
equations, based on values of the erodibility factor for classes
of soil. The generally high variation of K for a given Dg value
(fig. 4) suggested that a point K estimation cannot be obtained
by empirically re‐fitting a relationship of the form of
equations 5 and 6 to the Sicilian data.
In the analysis of the medians for each log D g interval,
both KR86 and KR97 were found to be significantly correlated
with nomograph K (fig. 5). For KR86, the 95% confidence
interval for the slope included unity (0.67‐1.31) but the
intercept was higher than zero (0.0005‐0.016). For KR97, the
95% confidence interval for the intercept included zero
(‐0.002‐0.004) but the slope was >1 (1.16‐1.40). Therefore,
the two regression lines did not coincide with the 1:1 line. In
other words, grouping soils by textural characteristics was
not sufficient to obtain an estimate of the soil erodibility
factor coinciding with the one obtained by the nomograph in
the considered range of Dg values.
Table 2. Summary statistics of the measured soil characteristics and
the first approximation (K') and final value of the soil
erodibility factor of the nomograph, K (sample size, N = 1813).
Standard
Variable Minimum Maximum Mean Median Deviation
Clay (< 0.002 mm) 0.0 76.3 30.0 28.3 15.7
Silt 0.6 92.7 39.4 39.6 14.3

(0.002‐0.05 mm)
1
Sand 1.1 99.2 30.6 24.3 21.4
0.1 (0.05‐2.0 mm)

0.01 f (0.002‐0.1 mm) 0.8 93.4 46.6 47.1 14.2

0 200 400 600 800 1000 g (0.1‐2.0 mm) 0.3 99.0 23.7 16.9 20.3
Rwa (MJ mm ha-1h-1) Organic matter, 0.0 18.0 2.9 2.3 2.2
OM (%)
Figure 3. Annual values of the ratio between erodibility of dry and wet
periods, K da/K wa, plotted against rainfall erosivity of the wet period, R wa. K' (SI units) 0.0004 0.0887 0.0250 0.0228 0.0132
K (SI units) 0.0065 0.0868 0.0291 0.0285 0.0126

Vol. 28(2): 199‐206 203


Figure 4. Relationship between the soil erodibility factor, K, determined
by the nomograph and the estimates obtained by equations 5 (KR86) and
6 (KR97), as a function of the geometric mean particle diameter, D g .
Figure 6 shows that the relationship between K' and M =
f × (f + g) (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) can be expressed
by the following equation:
(8)
K '= 7.0 × 10 −6 × M 0.998
which is characterized by R2 = 0.67 and an exponent
practically equal to one. A discrepancy factor, equal to the
ratio between K' obtained by equation 8 and the nomograph
K', was calculated as an indicator of the departure between
0.05
KR86 (SI units)
an estimate of K' obtained without any information on soil
OM content and the one based on both textural and OM data.
Although data appeared rather scattered in figure 6, a
noticeable discrepancy between the two estimates of K' was
a very rare occurrence given that the two K' values differed
by a factor of less than two for 1747 data points,
corresponding to 96.4% of the complete data set. The
discrepancy factor was less than three for 98.9% of the cases.
The K/K'es ratios, being the soil nomograph erodibility K
and K'es the estimate of K' obtained by equation 8, were
grouped according to the value of the SS × PP index, and the
median of K/K'es, denoted by the symbol MR, was calculated
for each SS × PP value. Plotting MR against SS × PP showed
that the two variables were related by the following linear
relationship (fig. 7):
MR = 0.731 + 0.068 × SS × PP (9)
with R2 = 0.94. Finally, the following relationship was
obtained by combining equations 8 and 9:
K es = 7.0 × 10 −6 × M × (0.731 + 0.068 × SS × PP) (10)
where Kes is the estimate of the soil erodibility factor, in SI
units, based exclusively on soil textural data. The comparison
between Kes and K of the nomograph (fig. 8) suggested a
minimal bias of the predictions, perhaps related to the small
number of high erodibility values in the considered dataset,

y = 0.9915x + 0.0081
0.04 R@ = 0.8636 and it yielded a NSEI value of 0.589. Moreover, the
discrepancies between Kes and K of the nomograph did not
0.03
exceed a factor of two for 1711 data points, corresponding to
0.02 94.4% of the complete dataset, with a discrepancy of less than
three in 99.2% of the cases.
0.01 In terms of medians, Kes was found to be significantly
a)
0 correlated with nomograph K (fig. 5c), and the regression line
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
K (SI units) 0.1
y = 7E -06x0.9977
K' (SI units)

0.08
0.05 R@ = 0.6691
0.06
KR97 (SI units)

y = 1.2792x + 0.0012
0.04 R@ = 0.987
0.04
0.03 0.02
0.02 0
0.01 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000
b)
M
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 Figure 6. Relationship between the first approximation of the soil
K (SI units) erodibility factor of the nomograph, K', and the M parameter.

0.05 2.5
Median of K/K'es

y = 1.1382x-0.0014 2
K es (SI units)

0.04 R@ = 0.9199
1.5
0.03
1 y = 0.0679x + 0.7308
0.02
R@ = 0.9385
0.5
0.01
c) 0
0 0 5 10 15 20 25
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 SS x PP
K (SI units) Figure 7. Relationship between the median of the K/K'es (K = erodibility
factor determined by the nomograph; K'es = first approximation of K
Figure 5. Comparison between the medians of K of the nomograph and the estimated by eq. 8) values grouped according to the SS (soil structure
corresponding medians obtained by a) eq. 5 (KR86); b) eq. 6 (KR97), and code) by PP (soil permeability code) product and SS × PP.
c) eq. 10 (Kes).

204 APPLIED ENGINEERING IN AGRICULTURE

 Estimated K (SI units)
0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06
K (SI units)
Figure 8. Comparison between the soil erodibility factor, K, values
determined by the nomograph and the ones estimated by eq. 10.
was not significantly different from the 1:1 line because the
95% confidence intervals for the slope (0.86‐1.41) and the
intercept (‐0.008‐0.005) included one and zero, respectively.
Taking into account the multiplicative nature of the
USLE, an error in the predicted erodibility by a factor of two
or three implies an equal approximation in the predicted soil
loss per unit area as compared with a prediction also using
OM data. It seems reasonable to suggest that this level of
approximation for a model yielding satisfactory results in the
original formulation is acceptable, at least in practical
applications where the order of magnitude of the soil erosion
phenomenon has to be estimated. Therefore, equation 10 is
expected to have interest for professionals and technicians.
CONCLUSIONS
The general objective of this investigation was to derive
a method to predict the soil erodibility factor of the USLE, K,
in Sicily with limited soil data. For the Sparacia clay soil, K
was experimentally determined because the nomograph is
not expected to be well suited for this type of soil. The
experimental K factor (0.0389 t ha h ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1) was
higher than the nomograph estimation (0.021 t ha h
ha‐1MJ‐1mm‐1) but the detected level of discrepancy was not
considered substantial from a practical point of view.
Possible reasons for this discrepancy were the unsuitability
of the nomograph to represent erodibility of clay soils or the
circumstance that the sampled plots had a greater slope
(14.9%) than the unit plot (9%). A higher erodibility in
summer than in winter was measured at Sparacia, suggesting
that soil aggregates were less stable in a drier condition.
Taking into account that OM data are often missing in
regional soil databases, a procedure to obtain an estimate of
K using exclusively soil textural information was considered
to have practical importance for professional and
technicians. Existing simplified methodologies were found
not to work well in Sicily. Therefore, an alternative
methodology was developed. This methodology, also using
a criterion to estimate structure and permeability classes on
the basis of soil texture data, was found to be reasonably
accurate for most practical purposes, given that the errors of
the predictions did not exceed a factor of two and three for
94.4% and 99.2% of the considered 1813 data points,
respectively. The large sample size and the wide range of
values for both the soil nomograph erodibility and the
variables used for its calculation gave plausible cause to
believe that the developed procedure should be usable at a
larger scale than the Sicilian one.
Vol. 28(2): 199‐206
This investigation gave support to early suggestions that
the USLE can be viewed as a satisfactory compromise
between reliability and simplicity of the estimate, at least in
particular cases such as the ones corresponding to the unit
plot condition, and it added a new experimental measurement
of the soil erodibility factor for a still unexplored
Mediterranean area. Improving interpretation of the soil
erosion processes at different spatial and temporal scales and
0.08 0.1 testing or developing physically oriented modeling
approaches have an obvious scientific importance. However,
simple and physically plausible empirical methods for
predicting soil erosion should not be abandoned because they
allow soil erosion prediction by professionals and
technicians. More soil erosion data are necessary in all cases.
In particular, other experimental installations for soil erosion
measurement should be realized in Sicily to test applicability
of the USLE and other models in other locations of the island.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was supported by grants of the University of
Palermo (Dottorato di Ricerca in Idronomia Ambientale) and
the Sicilian Region (Progetti MOFEROS and CISS), Regione
Sicilia. All authors set up the research, analyzed the results
and wrote the paper. We wish to thank the Associate Editor
and all Reviewers since their constructive comments helped
us to improve the quality of the manuscript.
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