Abstract
Erosive processes
on sloped grounds lead, on the one hand, to the infringement of the soil cover,
and on the other hand, to the contamination of other environmental compartments
with the products of surface runoff and the washout of soil. It is necessary to
have reliable mathematical models for forecasting the processes of erosion at
the catchment scale. From these positions the Russian-German
project “Erosion” in the bilateral program “Volga-Rhine” has been developed and
was realized.
One of the results
of joint German and Russian group of scientists was the modelling
system IWAN (Integrated Winter Erosion and Nutrient Load Model). This model
allows the prediction of soil erosion during spring snow melting which was
identified by catchment monitoring to be the major
trigger for erosion. Application and calibration of the model was conducted
with monitoring data from 2003 to 2005 for the catchment
of the small river Lubazhikha (18.8 km2),
located approximately
The modelled annual water balance and the amount of runoff
during individual snowmelt events for the period 2003 to 2005 match the
measurements. Due to the realistic spatial distribution of erosion areas and
their individual connectivity to the main stream channel, the simulated net
erosion of the catchment is close to the measured
loads. The error of sediment loads varies between 10 and 30%.
Keywords: Modelling, soil erosion, forecasting of water erosion, mathematical modeling