Estimating storm erosion with a rainfall simulator

S. C. Nolan1, L. J. P. van Vliet2, T. W. Goddard1, and T. K. Flesch3

1Conservation and Development Branch, Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, #206, 7000-113
Street, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6H 5T6, e-mail: snolan@ulysses.sis.ualberta.ca; 2British Columbia Land
Resource Unit, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Agassiz, British Columbia, Canada V0M 1A0; 3Department of
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H4. Received
27 August 1996, accepted 10 July 1997.

Nolan, S. C., van Vliet, L. J. P., Goddard, T. W. and Flesch, T. K. 1997. Estimating storm erosion with a rainfall simulator.
Can. J. Soil Sci. 77: 669–676. Interpreting soil loss from rainfall simulators is complicated by the uncertain relationship between
Can. J. Soil. Sci. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by 130.105.110.3 on 09/04/22

simulated and natural rainstorms. Our objective was to develop and test a method for estimating soil loss from natural rainfall using
a portable rainfall simulator (1 m2 plot size). Soil loss from 12 rainstorms was measured on 144-m2 plots with barley residue in
conventional tillage (CT), reduced tillage (RT) and zero tillage (ZT) conditions. A corresponding “simulated” soil loss was cal-
culated by matching the simulator erosivity to each storm’s erosivity. High (140 mm h–1) and low (60 mm h–1) simulation inten-
sities were examined. The best agreement between simulated and natural soil loss occurred using the low intensity, after making
three adjustments. The first was to compensate for the 38% lower kinetic energy of the simulator compared with natural rain. The
second was for the smaller slope length of the simulator plot. The third was to begin calculating simulator erosivity only after
runoff began. After these adjustments, the simulated soil loss over all storms was 99% of the natural soil loss for CT, 112% for
RT and 95% for ZT. Our results show that rainfall simulators can successfully estimate soil loss from natural rainfall events.

Key words: Natural rainfall events, simulated rainfall, erosivity, tillage

Nolan, S. C., van Vliet, L. J. P., Goddard, T. W. et Flesch, T. K. 1997. Estimation de l’érosion pluviale au moyen d’un simu-
For personal use only.

lateur de pluie. Can. J. Soil Sci. 77: 669–676. L’interprétation des déperditions de sol à partir de données obtenues au moyen de
simulateurs de pluie est rendue compliquée par l’incertitude des rapports existants entre pluie simulée et pluie naturelle. L’objet
de nos travaux était de mettre au point et de tester une méthode d’estimation des déperditions de sol causées par les pluies
naturelles au moyen d’un simulateur de pluie portatif (sur parcelle de 1 m2). Les déperditions de sol résultant de 12 épisodes de
pluie étaient mesurées dans des parcelles de 144 m2 portant des restes de culture d’orge et conduites en régime de travail du sol
classique (TC), de travail réduit (TR) et de cultures sans travail du sol (CST). Les déperditions correspondantes en conditions
simulées étaient calculées en appariant les valeurs d’érosivité du simulateur au pouvoir érosif réel de chaque épisode pluvial. On
utilisait une forte (140 mm h–1) et une basse (60 mm h–1) intensité de précipitations simulées. La meilleure concordance entre les
déperditions de sol causées entre les pluies réelles et les pluies simulées s’observait au régime d’intensité pluviale inférieure,
moyennant toutefois 3 corrections, la première, pour compenser la moindre (38 %) énergie cinétique du simulateur par rapport aux
précipitations naturelles; le second pour tenir compte de la pente plus courte de la parcelle sous simulateur de pluie, tandis que la
troisième consistait à ne commencer à calculer l’érosivité en régime simulé qu’après le début du ruissellement. Moyennant ces
trois corrections, les déperditions de sol en simulation, tous épisodes pluviaux confondus, correspondaient à 99 % des déperditions
par pluie naturelle observées en régime TC, à 112 % en régime TR et à 95 % en régime CST. Il semble que les simulateurs de
pluie permettent parfaitement d’estimer les déperditions de sol causées par les épisodes de pluie naturelle.

Mots clés: Épisodes de pluie naturelle, pluie simulée, érosivité, travail du sol

Rainfall simulators play an important role in understanding
soil erosion. They allow soil loss and runoff to be generated
under controlled and repeatable conditions. However, the
interpretation of simulator measurements is complicated by
the uncertain relationship between the erosiveness of simu-
lated and natural rainstorms. A common operating proce-
dure is to choose a precipitation intensity, then run the
simulator for an essentially arbitrary time (Andraski et al.
1985), or until steady state runoff is achieved (Elliot et al.
1989; West et al. 1991). Although the resulting measure-
ments are informative, they could be given greater context if
related to historic storms.
Can soil loss generated with a rainfall simulator approxi-
mate field-scale soil loss from specific storms? McIsaac and
Mitchell (1992) and Robichaud and Waldrop (1994) looked
669
at this question but focused on relative measures of erosion,
such as soil loss per unit of runoff, not the amount of soil
loss. Two difficult problems exist in relating soil loss from
simulated and natural rainfall: replicating the erosive energy
(erosivity) of a specific storm with a simulator, and “scal-
ing-up” soil loss from the typically small simulator plots to
larger field-scales.
One approach to replicating the erosivity of natural
storms is to duplicate the intensity and duration of a natural
storm with a simulator. Besides being impractical, this
ignores important differences between natural and simulat-
ed rainfall properties that alter erosivity, such as drop size
distribution and drop velocities (Peterson and Bubenzer
1986). A more practical approach is to use extreme rainfall
climatology to select a simulation duration and intensity that
 670 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SOIL SCIENCE

can be statistically related to a historic event, such as a one

in 100 yr storm (Blough et al. 1990). Yet how well do such
statistical “duration-intensity” storms translate into historic
storm erosivities? The problem of differences in natural and
simulated rainfall characteristics would also remain.
Even if the erosivity of natural rainfall can be approxi-
mated with a rainfall simulator, one must “scale-up” simu-
lated soil loss to estimate field-scale soil loss. With
small-plot simulators there are no realistic means of gener-
ating the rill erosion found on long slopes. Foster et al.
(1981b) indicate that only sheet erosion can be measured
from plots of less than about 4 m in length. Soil loss from a
simulator will then underestimate erosion from larger areas.
Other difficulties when comparing soil loss from the simu-
Can. J. Soil. Sci. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by 130.105.110.3 on 09/04/22

lator with natural erosion include the question of how many

small plot simulator replicates are needed to characterize
field scale soil loss, and how to account for differences
between antecedent conditions of natural and simulated ero-
sion events.
The objective of our study was to develop and test a Fig. 1. The GRS-II rainfall simulator used in this study.
method for estimating soil loss from natural rainstorms
using measurements from a portable rainfall simulator. Our
procedure was based on matching the erosivities of simulat- Soil Loss Measurements
ed and natural rainfall, using Wischmeier and Smith’s Soil loss from natural rainstorms (referred to as “natural”
(1978) R factor. Adjustments for differences in the kinetic soil loss) was collected from the 144 m2 plots between May
energy of simulated and natural rainfall, and for differences 1987 and June 1991. Measurements were made at the end of
For personal use only.

in the slope lengths of the simulated and natural plots were
also used. We compared soil loss from a rainfall simulator
on 1 m2 plots with natural soil loss from 12 rainstorms mea-
sured on 144 m2 plots. Soil loss was measured under CT, RT
and ZT conditions previously cropped to barley.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Study Site
Our study site was a long-term barley tillage experiment
near Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The site was a 6–8%
sloping Donnelly silt loam (Solonetzic Gray Luvisol).
Erosion was measured from bounded 30.0 m (upslope) by
4.8 m plots in CT, RT and ZT conditions. Each tillage con-
dition was replicated three times in a randomized complete
block design. Experimental and site details are described in
van Vliet et al. (1993).
Rainfall Simulator
A tripod mounted Guelph Rainfall Simulator (GRS II)
(Tossell et al. 1987) was used to generate soil loss. The
portable GRS II delivers water from a single nozzle sus-
pended above the ground (Fig. 1). Soil loss was collected
from bounded 1.0 m by 1.0 m plots within a wetted perime-
ter that extended approximately 0.5 m beyond the plot bor-
ders. We used a low-intensity simulation targeted at 60 mm
h–1, using a 3/8 inch 20W nozzle, at a height of 1.2 m and
pressure of 69 kPa (Table 2 in Tossell et al. 1987). A high-
intensity simulation was targeted at 140 mm h–1, using a 1/2
inch 30W nozzle, at a height of 1.7 m and pressure of 48 kPa
(Tossell et al. 1987). The low-intensity simulations varied
by ±10% between simulations and the high-intensity ones
by ±19%. Further details of the simulator study are present-
ed in Nolan et al. (1992).
each spring season (defined as after snowmelt, but before
crop establishment). These five measurement periods
included a total of 12 rainstorms (Table 1). Precipitation
intensity and duration were recorded with a Belfort
Universal recording rain gauge. Snow accounted for 6% of
the precipitation (water equivalent) during the 1989 period,
and 9% during 1990. Soil loss from this snowmelt was con-
sidered slight, and the snowfall was ignored in the erosivity
calculations.
Soil loss from the rainfall simulator (referred to as “sim-
ulated” soil loss) was measured on 27–30 May 1991, before
spring tillage. Table 2 outlines the soil conditions at the time
of simulation. Sites were not pre-wetted, and no precipita-
tion occurred during the simulations. Low- and high-inten-
sity simulations were conducted on separate 1 m2 plots,
within each of the 144 m2 natural soil loss plots. Each sim-
ulation lasted approximately 20 min. Runoff subsamples
were collected by suction every 3 min after runoff started.
All remaining runoff was collected by suction and by wash-
ing the collection apron after each simulation. The subsam-
ple measurements were used to proportion the total soil loss
over the simulation. Cumulative soil loss “curves” were cre-
ated by linear interpolation between the subsample mea-
surements.
Estimating Natural Soil Loss from Simulated
Rainfall
MATCHING EROSIVITY. Our approach was to replicate natural
rainstorm erosivity with the rainfall simulator. Our measure
of erosivity was the R (erosivity) factor of Wischmeier and
Smith (1958). The R factor of a natural storm is determined
by the precipitation characteristics, and is calculated as:
 NOLAN ET AL. — STORM EROSION WITH A RAINFALL SIMULATOR 671

Table 1. Natural rainstorm characteristics and erosivity (R) over the study period
Storm Storm Max. 30-min Measurement
Measurement Storm precipitation duration intensity Storm R period R
period date (mm) (h) (mm h–1) (MJ mm ha–1 h–1) (MJ mm ha–1 h–1)
1 20 June 1987 26.2 13.0 12.8 56.5 56.5

2 13 May 1988 19.0 10.0 7.0 22.5

5 June 1988 73.5 30.0 15.0 199.4 221.9

3 20 May 1989 22.0z 24.0 3.0 8.7

8 June 1989 17.0 12.0 10.0 26.9
9 June 1989 9.0 0.5 18.0 32.8
13 June 1989 27.0 4.0 34.0 193.4 261.8

4 17 April 1990 12.5 9.0 8.0 14.5

24 May 1990 24.0 15.0 8.0 28.8
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10 June 1990 104.0 50.0 6.0 98.0 141.3

5 13 June 1991 14.0 10.0 8.0 7.9

4 June 1991 31.0 20.0 12.0 27.5 35.4
z 1.7% of precipitation as snow.

Table 2. Soil surface conditions at the time of the rainfall to twice the amount of rain (although not dimensionally cor-
simulations rect), thus:

Rsim = Esim 2 Psim = Esim 2( Dsim Isim )

Gravimetric
Tillage Crop residue Roughness soil moisture Bulk density (4)
type cover (%) indexz (% by weight) (Mg m–3)
For personal use only.

Conventional 48b 126b 11.7a 1.1a where Esim is the “storm” energy of the simulated rainfall
Reduced 53b 335a 11.8a 1.1a (Eq. 2), Psim is the depth of water applied in the simulation
Zero 89a 195ab 9.0a 1.1a (mm), Dsim is the simulation duration (h), and Isim is the sim-
Standard Error 2.5 46 2.5 0.1
zRillmeter
ulated intensity (mm h–1). A duration Dsim could then be
method, index after Romkens and Wang (1986). chosen to give Rsim matching any of the 12 natural storms:
a,bValues within a column followed by the same letter are not signifi-
cantly different at P < 0.05 using Fisher’s protected LSD.
R
Dsim (5)
2 Isim Esim
R = EI30 (1)

where I30 is the maximum 30 min rainfall intensity of the
storm (mm h–1), and E is the total storm energy (MJ ha–1).
Storm energy is determined by dividing the storm into n
segments of approximately constant intensity:
n
E= ∑ ei Pi
i =1
where ei is the energy per unit rainfall (MJ ha–1 mm–1) dur-
ing the segment, and Pi is the segment precipitation (mm).
Foster et al. (1981a) give an empirical expression for ei:
ei = (0.119 + 0.0873 log10 Ii )
where Ii is the segment rainfall intensity (mm h–1); whenev-
er ei exceeds 0.283 MJ ha–1 mm –1, it is set at that value.
Separate R values were calculated for each of the 12 natural
rainstorms in our study (Table 1).
The 12 natural rainstorm R values were mimicked with
the rainfall simulator (Rsim), using an adaptation of Eq. 1.
For rain durations less than 30 min, such as our simulations,
Wischmeier and Smith (1978) indicate that I30 should be set
The simulated soil loss at time Dsim, which will correspond
to the natural soil loss for the given R, was determined from
the cumulative soil loss curves created from the simulator
measurements. Therefore only one simulator run was used
to calculate simulated soil loss for each of the 12 storms. For
the low intensity simulations, the Dsim corresponding to 2 of
(2) the 12 storms exceeded the 20 min simulation durations, and
we linearly extrapolated the cumulative soil loss curves (but
by no more than 1.8 min past our field measurements).
ENERGY ADJUSTMENT. An important assumption when calcu-
lating Dsim (Eq. 5) is equality between the kinetic energy of
simulated and natural rain at equal intensities. However,
(3) Tossell et al. (1990) found that the kinetic energy of rainfall
from the GRS II was lower than natural rainfall, due to dif-
ferences in drop sizes and velocities. We calculated an ener-
gy adjusted Dsim by assuming that Esim was 38% of natural
rainfall at the low intensity and 45% of natural for the high
intensity (interpolating from Tossell et al. (1990)). For three
of the 12 storms the adjusted Dsim values were larger than
the 20 min simulation durations for the low intensity, and
the soil loss curves were linearly extrapolated by up to 32
min.
 672 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SOIL SCIENCE
SCALE ADJUSTMENT. When comparing erosion from plots
with different slope lengths, it is important to consider the
relative importance of sheet and rill erosion. Rill erosion
increases with slope length (Foster et al. 1981b). As our
30 m long natural plots will produce more rill erosion than
our 1 m long simulator plots, we adjusted the simulated soil
loss upward to account for the “missing” rill erosion.
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Wischmeier
and Smith 1978) provides a simple means of accounting for
the effect of slope length on erosion. In the USLE, soil loss
over the length of a uniform slope is proportional to a slope
length factor, calculated as:
α
L = (λ / 22.1) (6)
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where λ is distance up-slope (m) from the origin of overland
flow, 22.1 m is the USLE standard plot length, and the expo-
nent α increases as a soil is more susceptible to rill erosion.
Foster et al. (1977) relate α to the ratio of rill to sheet ero-
sion (β):
α = β / (1 + β ) (7)
where β is computed from McCool et al. (1989):
(
β = (sin θ / 0.0896) / 3(sin θ )0.8 + 0.56 ) (8)
For personal use only.
and θ is the slope angle. This expression for β is for condi-
tions where rill and sheet erosion are equal over a 22.1 m
plot length (a typical agricultural soil).
Our adjustment for the “missing” rill erosion was to mul-
tiply the simulated soil loss by the ratio of L for the natural
plots to L of the simulator plots. Following the advice of
McCool et al. (1989), we used λ = 4 m when calculating L
for our simulator plots and λ = 30 m for the natural plots.
With an average slope of 7%, L for the simulated measure-
ments is 0.46 and L for the natural plots is 1.15. We there-
fore multiplied the simulated soil loss by 2.5 to adjust it to
the natural rainfall plot length.
RESULTS
“Natural” soil loss was consistent with our expectations that
CT > RT > ZT (Table 3). This ordering was generally seen
in the “simulated” soil loss (Fig. 2), although this depended
on the simulation time considered. Although we expected
CT would have the earliest runoff in our simulations, RT
was the earliest, followed by CT and ZT. In both the simu-
lated and natural cases, ZT was very effective in reducing
soil loss.
An initial comparison of natural and simulated soil loss
for the five measurement periods (which included 12
storms) is shown in Fig. 3. The simulated soil loss was
determined by adding the soil loss for each storm in the peri-
od (matching each storm’s erosivity). The simulated soil
loss in Fig. 3 does not include any adjustments for the lower
kinetic energy of the simulator, or the differences in slope
length. It represents the “raw” data from the low-intensity
simulations. Although there was a significant correlation
(P < 0.10) between natural and simulated soil loss for the
five measurement periods, the natural soil loss was almost
10 times the simulated value. There was also a large “scat-
ter” in the relationship between the two (r2 = 0.22).
Adjustments to account for the lower kinetic energy of
the simulator (E adjustment) and the smaller slope length (L
adjustment) led to better agreement with natural soil loss for
the low-intensity simulations (in both correlation coefficient
and magnitude). Figure 4 shows the result of these adjust-
ments on the accumulated soil loss from all five measure-
ment periods. The unadjusted soil loss represented only 14
to 18% of the natural soil loss from the three tillage treat-
ments. With the E and L adjustments, the low-intensity sim-
ulated soil loss rose to 64% of natural in CT (significantly
different), 76% in RT (not significantly different), and 47%
in ZT (significantly different).
Using the high-intensity simulations gave an unadjusted
soil loss that was not significantly different from natural soil
loss for CT and RT (Fig. 4). The unadjusted soil loss was
117% of natural for CT, 87% for RT, although only 7% for
ZT. The E and L adjustments worsened the agreement to as
much as a 623% overestimation of the natural soil loss.
We made an additional adjustment to determine our sim-
ulated soil loss. We commenced our calculations of simula-
tor erosivity when runoff began, rather than when the
simulation began (adjustment B). The desired duration Dsim
is then the simulator duration after runoff begins. This was
based on comments by Wischmeier and Mannering (1969)
that runoff was almost instantaneous under natural rain-
storms, but in simulated rainfall studies a substantial time
elapsed before runoff began. They disregarded this time lag
in their determination of the USLE soil erodibility (K) fac-
tor from simulated rainfall. Moreover, Auerswald et al.
(1992) found that the runoff lag increased with decreasing
simulator plot size, and recommended disregarding rainfall
over this time lag when calculating simulator erosivity. This
adjustment required further extrapolation of soil loss from
our low-intensity simulations for 4 of the 12 storms (up to
21.6 min beyond our measurements).
When adjusted for E, L and B, there was excellent agree-
ment between the natural and simulated soil loss using the
low intensity simulation (Fig. 4). The E-L-B adjusted simu-
lated soil loss was 99% of the natural soil loss for CT, 112%
for RT and 95% for ZT. None of these is statistically differ-
ent from natural soil loss. However, the E-L-B adjustments
to the high-intensity simulations worsened the agreement to
as much as 948% overestimation of natural soil loss.
DISCUSSION
The accumulated soil loss estimated from the low-intensity
simulator measurements was within 12% of the natural soil
loss for each tillage treatment for the five measurement peri-
ods. This good agreement required a series of three adjust-
ments in our calculations of simulated soil loss. The E and
L adjustments are well founded. The rationale for the B
adjustment is not clear. Should we expect runoff generated
by a rainfall simulator to be delayed compared with natural
rainfall? It could be argued that the immediate imposition of
highly erosive rainfall on dry soils is unrelated to the pattern
of natural rainstorms, where there is some gradual soil wet-
 NOLAN ET AL. — STORM EROSION WITH A RAINFALL SIMULATOR 673

Table 3. Soil loss from natural rainfall on 144 m2 plots for CT, RT and ZT conditions during measurement periods from 1987 to 1991
Soil Loss (kg ha–1)
CT RT ZT
Measurement
period Mean SEz Mean SE Mean SE
1 69.3 20.8 31.3 11.5 41.0 3.5
2 67.3 18.2 35.3 15.8 6.7 2.0
3 487.5 146.0 233.6 36.0 40.2 12.0
4 406.8 42.8 277.2 7.5 208.0 26.0
5 71.6 14.4 66.2 21.1 34.9 2.3
Sum 1102.5a 126.0 643.6b 42.4 331.7c 33.0
zStandarderror.
a,bValues followed by different letters in the sum row are significantly different at P < 0.05 using analysis of variance.
Can. J. Soil. Sci. Downloaded from cdnsciencepub.com by 130.105.110.3 on 09/04/22
For personal use only.

Fig. 2. Cumulative soil loss from the GRS II for 60 mm h–1 and 140 mm h–1 simulations in CT, RT and ZT conditions. Bars represent stan-
dard error. Simulated soil loss is determined by matching the erosivity of each natural storm with a simulation duration that represents the
corresponding simulator erosivity.

ting before highly erosive periods. And should we also
expect the runoff lag to increase with decreasing simulator
plot size, as described by Auerswald et al. (1992)? It is not
clear to us what the physical basis for this would be.
When we conclude that the low-intensity simulations
most accurately describe natural soil loss (after E-L-B
adjustments), we dismiss the good agreement between nat-
ural and simulated soil loss from the high-intensity simula-
tion for CT and RT (unadjusted). We believe this agreement
was coincidental given the well-founded expectation that
soil loss from a 1-m length plot would be less than from a
30-m length plot due to the absence of rill erosion (which
was not so in the high intensity case), and the very poor
agreement for ZT in the high-intensity simulation.
Although we found good results using the E-L-B adjusted
low intensity simulation to estimate the accumulated natur-
al soil loss over the five study periods, the relationship was
not as impressive on an individual measurement period
basis (Fig. 5). We saw an underestimation of the high natur-
al soil losses, an overestimation of the low losses, and a
large amount of scatter in the relationship (r2 = 0.32). We
attribute this scatter to four possible factors (excluding mea-
surement errors): i) the field conditions that spanned 5 yr of
spring conditions in our study were not universally repre-
sented by the field conditions during our simulations in May
1991; ii) the crudeness of “scaling-up” simulator measure-
ments to the larger area of the natural rainfall plots; iii) inac-
curacy in R as a measure of erosivity; and iv) not enough
replications in either the natural or simulated plots.
In our methodology there is the potential for significant
error when scaling up the simulator measurements. The L
factor is a simplistic treatment of slope length effects on soil
loss. For instance, the value of β in Eq. 8 (used to calculate
α) implies equal amounts of sheet and rill erosion for a 22.1
m slope. However, McCool et al. (1989) list α values rang-
ing from 0.30 to 0.62 for a 7% slope, reflecting differences
in the proportion of rill to sheet erosion. When we vary α
over the range listed by McCool et al. (1989) we see a
departure in our L adjustment factor from –27% to +43%,
and a corresponding variation in our simulated soil loss.
Inaccuracy in R is evident in the differences between soil
loss for the high- and low-intensity simulations. If R accu-
rately quantified erosivity, intensity should not have made a
difference in the simulated soil loss, as intensity is incorpo-
rated in the calculation. Yet intensity did make a large dif-
ference. Perhaps our high simulation intensity (140 mm h–1)
was outside the range of rainfall conditions used to develop
R, and therefore outside the range of R applicability. Also,
 674 CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SOIL SCIENCE
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Fig. 3. Natural versus simulated soil loss for five measurement
periods and three replications of CT, RT and ZT conditions.
Simulated soil loss is from 60 mm h–1 intensity with no adjust-
ments.
For personal use only.
Fig. 4. Accumulated soil loss from five measurement periods in
CT, RT and ZT conditions. The different columns represent soil
loss from: natural rainfall on 144 m2 plots (Natural); unadjusted
simulations (Unadjusted); energy adjusted simulations (E Adj.);
energy plus slope length adjusted simulations (E-L Adj.); and ener-
gy, slope length and runoff begin adjusted simulations (E-L-B
Adj.). The two graphs represent low (60 mm h–1) and high (140
mm h–1) intensity simulations. Bars represent standard error.
Fig. 5. Natural versus simulated soil loss for five measurement
periods in CT, RT and ZT conditions. Simulated soil loss is from
60 mm h–1 intensity with E-L-B adjustments.
Fig. 6. Soil loss from natural rainfall on 144 m2 plots versus R from
CT, RT and ZT conditions. Soil loss and R values are for five mea-
surement periods. Lines represent best linear fit regressions.
setting I30 to twice the rainfall depth when calculating Rsim,
as instructed by Wischmeier and Smith (1978) for rainfall
durations less than 30 min, may not be well founded.
The natural soil loss measurements also indicate deficien-
cies in R. Figure 6 shows how natural soil loss for the five
measurement periods varied with the accumulated period R
values. While we expected a close linear relationship
between the two, we instead saw substantial scatter (r2 =
0.27 for CT, 0.17 for RT and 0.01 for ZT). While this may
be partially explained by differences in field conditions at
the time of the different storms, or possible inaccuracies in
the precipitation record, some of this scatter is probably due
to inaccuracy in R. This would not be surprising, as R is an
 NOLAN ET AL. — STORM EROSION WITH A RAINFALL SIMULATOR
empirical factor that relates common meteorological vari-
ables to erosivity, with inherent uncertainties. Indeed,
Wischmeier and Smith’s (1958) original data show less
accuracy in the relationship between R and soil loss for the
low values of R typical of our study. We might also specu-
late that the poor relationship between R and natural soil
loss from ZT indicates inadequacy in R. Since the soil sur-
face is almost completely covered with crop residue in ZT,
the impact energy of raindrops may no longer control soil
loss, and erosivity may be better related to another factor,
such as volume of water applied.
Finally, the fact that we saw good agreement between
accumulations of natural and simulated soil loss, but not for
individual measurement periods, is not necessarily due to
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shortcomings in our method. Wendt et al. (1986) found
large and unexplained variability in soil loss from uniform
plots for single rainstorms, but differences between plots
were reduced when soil loss was summed over several
events. They suggest that a large number of plots are need-
ed to accurately measure soil loss from single events.
Perhaps the three repetitions used for measuring natural soil
loss in our study were not enough to give soil loss over a
limited number of storms. However, it then follows that
three repetitions of simulated soil loss for each treatment
may not be enough either.
For personal use only.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
We have shown that soil loss on large plots from a series of
natural rainstorms can be accurately estimated using soil
loss measured with a rainfall simulator. Our method relied
on matching the erosivity of the simulator to that of each
rainstorm, using Wischmeier and Smith’s (1978) R factor to
quantify erosivity. The best agreement occurred with a sim-
ulation intensity of 60 mm h–1 after adjustments for: the
lower kinetic energy of the simulator compared with natur-
al rain, the smaller slope length of the simulator, and calcu-
lating erosivity from runoff start times. After these
adjustments, our simulator estimates of soil loss were with-
in 12% of the natural soil loss over three tillage conditions.
These results were surprisingly good given: i) that one 20-
min simulation was used to estimate 5 yr of springtime soil
loss; ii) the smaller size of the simulator plots and the diffi-
culties with “scaling-up” to larger areas; and iii) the weak-
ness of R as a quantification of erosivity. Our results were
not as good for individual measurement periods, but this
may be due to the natural variability of soil loss from single
erosion events.
Our results suggest that a rainfall simulator can be used to
estimate natural soil loss when operated on the principle of
Wischmeier and Smith’s (1978) R factor. Subsampling soil
loss during rainfall simulations is required to construct a
cumulative soil loss curve which makes it possible to use
one simulator run (preferably repeated) to approximate any
rainstorm (e.g., any R value). The cumulative soil loss curve
is also essential for making adjustments to the reduced
kinetic energy of the simulated rainfall. Because R is an
empirical erosivity measure, we advise staying within the
675
range of rainfall conditions used in its development, and not
use extreme rainfall intensities in simulations. We also rec-
ommend using a simulation intensity that is close to the
intensities of naturally occurring erosion events at a particu-
lar location (as was our low intensity simulation), and a
duration that spans the R climatology of interest.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We appreciate contributions to this study from K. Skarberg,
G. Lohstraeter, K. Toogood, L. Goonewardene, K. Carroll,
R. Kline, A. Koppel, P. Dzkowski, R. C. Izaurralde, R. G.
Kachanoski, and the reviewers. Financial support was
received from the Canada-Alberta Soil Conservation
Initiative and the Canada-British Columbia Agri-Food
Regional Development Subsidiary Agreement.
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