On the nonuniqueness of sediment yield at the catchment scale: The effects of soil antecedent conditions and surface shield

Abstract

The understanding of reasons leading to nonuniqueness of soil erosion susceptibility is still inadequate, yet indispensable for establishing general relations between runoff volume and sediment yield. To obtain relevant insights, we performed a series of numerical simulations with a detailed hydrodynamic model using synthetic storms of varying intensity, duration, and lag time between events as representations of different hydrologic response conditions in a zero‐order catchment. The design targeted to generate surface flow and “perturb” soil substrate by a first rainfall event, creating a set of initial conditions in terms of flow and deposited sediment prior to the onset of a subsequent rainfall event. Due to the differential effect of (re)detachment and (re)entrainment processes on soil particles of varying sizes, the deposited sediment mass formed shielding layer. One of the essential results is that unless the initial condition of flow and sediment is identical, the same volume of runoff can generate different total sediment yields and their variation can reach up to ∼200%. The effect is attributed to two major conflicting effects exerted by the deposited “initialization” (soil antecedent condition) sediment mass: erosion enhancement, because of supply of highly erodible sediment, and erosion impediment, because of constrain on the availability of lighter particles by heavier sediment. Consistently with this inference, long‐term simulations with continuous rainfall show that a peculiar feature of sediment yield series is the existence of maximum before the steady state is reached. The two characteristic time scales, the time to peak and the time to steady state, separate three characteristic periods that correspond to flow‐limited, source‐limited, and steady‐state regimes. These time scales are log linearly and negatively related to the spatially averaged Shields parameter: the smaller the rainfall input and the heavier a given particle is, the larger the two scales are. The results provide insights on how the existence of shield operates on erosion processes, possibly implying that accurate short‐term predictions of geomorphic events from headwater areas may never become a tractable problem: the latter would require a detailed spatial characterization of particle size distribution prior to precipitation events. Key Points The same volume of runoff can generate different total sediment yields (∼200%) Erosion enhancement or impediment effects exerted by the shielding layer Two time scales and three characteristic regimes