A Study of Soil Erosion Under Simulated Rainfall Conditions to Develop A Soil Erosion Model

The study was carried out in the lateritic terrain of KCAET campus, Tavanur, Malappuram District, Kerala. This study was aimed to find out the effect of rainfall and land slope on soil loss, the effect of rainfall and land slope on runoff and developing a soil erosion model. A rainfall simulator was fabricated to study the erosion processes. The fabricated rainfall simulator could produce rainfall intensities varying from 8.16 to 8.80 cm/h. The uniformity of rainfall varied from 89.01 to 92.70 per cent and the average drop size varied from 1.5 to 2.8 mm. The soil loss and runoff was found to increase with increase in rainfall intensity and land slopes and there were no much variations on runoff and soil loss at 6 to 10 per cent land slopes. A linear multiple regression analysis was used to incorporate slope and rainfall intensities into a single prediction equation of soil loss and runoff using SPSS software.