A CONCEPTUAL SOIL EROSION MODEL

Abstract

Soil erosion models have been moved from empirically-based models towards physically-based mathematically complicated models. The empirical models seem to be the more practical since they are mathematically simple, but they are limited to the area where they have been developed, and they are based on standard runoff plots on uniform slopes. Thus, hereby a conceptual model, which uses an empirical erosion equation, is presented and tested with erosion data from a bare micro-basin located in the Brazilian semiarid area. The results showed that the model could be used as a practical and simple tool for prediction of erosion in semiarid areas.