Project Number: 6408-13000-012-08
Project Type: Specific C/A

Start Date: Aug 15, 2000
End Date: Aug 14, 2005

Objective:
Improve current understanding and characterizations of soil erosion processes within ephemeral gullies and concentrated flow channels that typically devastate farm sustainability and farm productivity in Spain and the U.S. Enhance, apply, and further develop ARS watershed, water quality, and soil erosion prediction technology for application in Spain and the U.S.

Approach:
Ephemeral gully erosion can account for as much as 45% of soil losses in Mississippi and 80% in Spain. Experimental and field research in Spain and the U.S. will examine the processes of headcut formation and ephemeral gully erosion, develop enhanced topographic indicators to characterize the susceptibility of agricultural landscapes to ephemeral gully erosion, and integrate this knowledge into improved AGNPS 98 components for landscape erosion prediction. The National Sedimentation Laboratory is the national project leader for AGNPS 98, a suite of integrated technological tools developed to predict all aspects of soil erosion, runoff, sediment, and chemical routing through watersheds. Cooperation between the leading scientists in these fields from Spain and the U.S. will enhance and extend the capabilities of these tools by developing improved components of the models as well as expand the watershed parameter databases used.

Project Annual Reports

FY 2003   FY 2002   FY 2001