Finite Element Method and GIS Based Distributed Model for Soil Erosion and Sediment Yield in a Watershed

M. Naik, E. Rao () and T. Eldho

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2009, vol. 23, issue 3, 553-579

Abstract: The objective of this study is to develop a soil erosion and sediment yield model based on the kinematic wave approximation using the finite element method, remote sensing and geographical information system (GIS) for calculating the soil erosion and sediment yield in a watershed. Detachment of soil particles by overland flow occurs when the shear stress at the surface overcomes the gravitational forces and cohesive forces on the particles. Deposition occurs when the sediment load is greater than the transport capacity. Beasley et al.’s (Trans ASAE 23:938–944, 1980 ) transport equations for laminar and turbulent flow conditions are used to calculate the transport capacity. The model is capable of handling distributed information about land use, slope, soil and Manning’s roughness. The model is applied to the Catsop watershed in the Netherlands and the Harsul watershed in India. Remotely sensed data has been used to extract land use/land cover map of the Harsul watershed, and other thematic maps are generated using the GIS. The simulated results for both calibration and validation events are compared with the observed data for the watersheds and found to be reasonable. Statistical evaluation of model performance has been carried out. Further, a sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to study the effect of variation in model parameter values on computed volume of sediment, peak sediment and the time to peak sediment. Sensitivity analysis has also been carried out for grid size variation and time step variation of the Catsop watershed. The proposed model is useful in predicting the hydrographs and sedigraphs in the agricultural watersheds. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Keywords: Kinematic wave approximation; Finite element method; Erosion; Sediment yield; Geographical information system; Remote sensing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11269-008-9288-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:23:y:2009:i:3:p:553-579

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-008-9288-y

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().