PIAHSProceedings of the International Association of Hydrological SciencesPIAHSProc. IAHS2199-899XCopernicus PublicationsGöttingen, Germany10.5194/piahs-375-23-2017Evaluation of soil erosion rates in the southern half of the Russian Plain: methodology and initial resultsGolosovValentingollossov@gmail.comGusarovArtemavgusarov@mail.ruLitvinLeonidYermolaevOlegChizhikovaNellySafinaGuzelKiryukhinaZoyaKazan Federal University, Kremlyovskaya St. 18, Kazan, 420008, RussiaLomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, RussiaValentin Golosov (gollossov@gmail.com) and Artem Gusarov (avgusarov@mail.ru)3March20173752327This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article is available from https://piahs.copernicus.org/articles/375/23/2017/piahs-375-23-2017.htmlThe full text article is available as a PDF file from https://piahs.copernicus.org/articles/375/23/2017/piahs-375-23-2017.pdf
The Russian Plain (RP) is divided into two principally
different parts. The northern half of the RP is a predominantly forested
area with a low proportion of arable fields. In contrast, the southern half
of the RP has a very high proportion of arable land. During the last 30 years,
this agricultural region of the RP has experienced considerable land
use transformation and changes in precipitation due to climate change have
altered soil erosion rates. This paper describes the use of erosion model
calculations and GIS spatial analytical methods for the evaluation of trends
in erosion rates in the RP. Climate change (RIHMI World Data Center, 2016), land use transformation and crop
rotation modification (Rosstat, 2016; R Core Team, 2016) are the main factors governing erosion rates in the
region during recent decades. It was determined that mean annual erosion
rates have decreased from 7.3 to 4.1 t ha-1 yr-1
in the forest zone mostly because of the serious reduction in the
surface runoff coefficient for periods of snowmelt. At the same time, the
erosion rates have increased from 3.9 to 4.6 t ha-1 yr-1
in the steppe zone due to the increasing frequency of
heavy rain-storms.
Introduction
The southern part of the RP has very fertile soils and is the largest
agricultural region in Europe. This physiographic region consists of forest,
forest-steppe and steppe landscape zones. Agricultural activity in the
region has varied in duration from 4–5 centuries in the central region
around Moscow in the forest zone to about 120–150 years in the south and
south-east within the steppe zones (Sidorchuk and Golosov, 2003). The
largest area of agricultural activity is located in the forest-steppe zone.
During the 20th century, the spatial extent of agricultural activity
was relatively stable within the forest and forest-steppe zone. However, it
expanded in the steppe zone up to the end of the 1950s.
The last national scale quantitative assessment of erosion rates for the
European part of Russia (ER) was conducted in the 1980s using a modified
version of the USLE and the State Hydrological Institute model for soil
erosion during periods of rain-fall and snowmelt (Larionov, 1993). Results
from the model were verified using monitoring data for soil losses during
snowmelt and total sedimentation in the small field ponds constructed in the
early 1970's (Golosov, 2006). Estimates from the model agreed favourably
with measured soil loss.
More than 35 years have passed since the last quantitative assessment of
soil erosion losses from croplands on the RP. Considerable economic changes
have occurred since the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and land use and
crop-rotation changes in some landscape zones are evident. In addition,
global warming has altered the rates and magnitude of precipitation
(Groisman et al., 1999). While the effect of land use and climate change have
influenced erosion rates in many parts of the World (Yang et al., 2003; Zhao et al.,
2013) currently, there are no quantitative assessments of soil erosion rates
in the southern portion of the predominantly agricultural RP. Because of its
large spatial extent, such an assessment is only possible using a suite of
remote-sensing and GIS spatial analytical methods coupled with erosion
models. The methodology and initial results of this approach are presented
herein to compare soil erosion rates with previous studies conducted in the
1980s.
The mean annual number of days (N, units) with different
amounts of daily precipitation (warm season, May–September) for the period
1960–2015 for all 176 meteorological stations on the RP used in this
analysis. 1 – linear trend, 2 – sixth-degree polynomial trend.
Trends in maximum water discharges (Qmax) during
spring floods for some small rivers in the south of the forest-steppe zone
of the RP.
Materials and methodology
The assessment of trends in erosion rates for the entire area of the RP is
based on analysis of the dynamics of the main meteorological parameters
(Dore, 2005; Zolina, 2012) and changes in both crop area and type. Estimates
of present-day erosion rates for different landscapes were compared to mean
annual erosion rates estimated in the 1980s.
The key meteorological parameters determining the erosion rates are soil
temperature (before the period of snowmelt) and number of rain events
> 10 mm. Soil temperature data for European Russia from 1960
(Park et al., 2014) was used in the models. Daily precipitation data were provided
by the RIHMI World Data Center (http://aisori.meteo.ru/ClimateR; Veselov,
2002; Razuvaev et al., 1993). A total of 176 meteorological stations were selected
for the analysis. The meteorological stations used in this study had
precipitation data for the period 1960–2015 (several exceptions were made;
a shift to 1966–2014 was accepted) and had no more than 10 % of the time
series missing. According to Zolina (2012), it is appropriate to exclude
stations where more than 20 % of data set is missing. Rainfall
measurements were categorized as > 10, 10–20, 20–30,
30–40, 40–50 and > 50 mm by total amount and frequency.
The pattern of each time series was evaluated using a generalized linear
model (Madsen and Thyregod, 2012). Data processing, model building,
evaluation and visualization were performed in the “R environment” (R Core
Team, 2016).
Comparison of mean annual soil erosion rates and total
soil losses between1980 and 2012.
Landscape zones (subzones) of the European part of Russia (without mountain areas)Mean annual soil erosion rates in 1980, t ha-1 yr-1Mean annual soil erosion rates in 2012, t ha-1 yr-1Change in mean annual soil erosion rates∗, (±) %Total soil losses in 1980, 103 tTotal soil losses in 2012, 103 tChange in total soil losses∗ (±) %Northern and middle taiga subzones6.54.0-38.46131.51809-70.5Southern taiga subzone7.34.1-44.0145 03235 966-75.2Forest zones, total7.34.1-43.8151 16337 791-75.0Forest-steppe zone4.13.3-19.4136 45079 277-41.9Steppe zone3.94.6318.7148 618127 663-14.1Total European Russia4.74.0-15.0436 231244 831-43.9
∗ relationship between 1980 and 2012
Changes in the areas of arable and cultivated lands in the
landscape zones of the RP between 1980 and 2012.
% Change in area Landscape zones of theArea of cultivated landsArable landsArea of cultivated landsArable landsArea of cultivated landsEuropean part of Russiain 1980∗,in 2012,in 2012,in 2012,in 2012,103 ha103 ha103 ha(±) %(±) %Forest zones (total)20 789.916 7389222.1-19.5-55.6Forest-steppe zone33 286.429 36023 978.1-11.8-28Steppe zone38 544.836 10427 894.3-6.3-27.6Total European Russia92 621.282 20261 094.5-11.2-34
∗ Area of cultivated lands in 1980 was equal to area of arable lands
Data on land-use changes and the spatial extent of land area and crop type
for different regions since 1991 were provided by the Russian Federal State
Statistics Service (Rosstat, 2016). Particular attention was given to
evaluation of cropland dynamics in each landscape zone. Additional sources
of information for correction of possible errors in the official statistics
were found elsewhere (Lyuri et al., 2010). Crop rotation coefficients for
modelling were calculated separately for both rainfall season and snow melt
for the period 1991–2014.
Results
There is widespread agreement in the literature that climate change has had
a significant effect on weather patterns (Dore, 2005) and erosion rates
globally (Nearing et al., 2004). The total number of rain events of > 10 mm
have not increased significantly for all groups since the 1960s for
most parts of the RP (Fig. 1). There was, however, a significant increase (p>0.10) in the number of rain events > 40–50 mm mostly along the
line linking Bryansk–Izhevsk and near the Caucasus foothills in the
south-west parts of the steppe zone. It has previously been reported that
about 80 % of total soil losses occur during the warm season (Edwards and
Owens, 1991) and the observed increase in the total number of heavy rains
will have had an effect on the erosion in the steppe zone of the RP (Table 1).
The average soil temperature increased over the period 1960 to 2006 by
8 ∘C in the south-western part of the RP in the steppe zone and
4 ∘C in the southern part of the forest zone near the Ural
mountain system (Park et al., 2014). Increasing soil temperature reduced the depth
of frozen soil before snowmelt and surface runoff coefficients decreased as
a consequence. This is also confirmed by a reduction in spring flood levels
for most small rivers in the southern half of the RP since the beginning of
the 1980s (Fig. 2). Results of direct monitoring of surface runoff from
cultivated land at the Novosil' monitoring station, located in the middle
part of the Zhusha River basin (Central Russia), confirmed that the
coefficient of surface runoff had decreased from 0.5 for the period
1955–1980 to < 0.1 for the most recent decades (Petelko et al., 2007).
The observed decrease in gully head retreat rates during the last decade in
different parts of the Vyatsko-Kamskoe interfluve area may also account for
the reduction of surface runoff from the cultivated slopes during periods of
snowmelt (Rysin et al., this volume). Accordingly, soil losses from croplands
during snowmelt periods have decreased significantly over the last two
decades in particular in the forest zone.
During the period 1980–2012, there was a significant reduction in cropland
area due to an increase in abandoned lands that have not been cultivated for
the past decade for the all landscape zones of the RP (Table 2). However,
the extent of cultivated lands has increased in the forest-steppe zone since
2010.
Although some changes in crop rotation were observed, the crop and cover
management coefficients have not changed for the forest-steppe and steppe
zones. However, crop and cover management coefficients have decreased in the
forest zone. The primary reason for this observation was an increasing
proportion of cultivated land under annual and/or perennial grasses in the
forest landscape zone.
Meteorological and land use change data were used to re-calculate the mean
annual erosion rates and the annual soil losses for the different landscape
zones of the RP (Table 1). It was found that the annual soil losses had
decreased in all the landscape zones because of a reduction in cropland
area. Further analyses of the factors affecting soil erosion rates at a
range of spatial scales and for different landscape types is required to
provide more detail regarding the influence of land use and climate change
on the erosion rates in the agriculturally intensive southern portion of the
RP.
Conclusions
Quantitative assessment of contemporary erosion rates on the arable lands of
the RP was undertaken using remote sensing and GIS techniques coupled with
erosion models. Temporal changes of some key parameters in the erosion model
(erosion index of precipitation, crop and cover management coefficients and
surface runoff coefficient for periods of snowmelt) were investigated.
During the period from 1980 to 2012, mean annual erosion rates decreased
from 7.3 to 4.1 t ha-1 yr-1 in the forest
zone, because of a reduction in surface runoff coefficients during snowmelt
and the increasing area under annual and perennial grasses. There was a
slight decrease in erosion rates in the forest-steppe zone and a more
significant increase in erosion rates in the steppe zone (Table 1). The
latter change occurred because of the increasing frequency of heavy
rainstorms. The reduction in soil loss since the 1980s in all landscape
zones was attributed to the decrease in cropped area (Table 2).
Data availability
Information about arable and cultivated lands was collected and areas under
different crops (information was used for calculation of crop and cover
management coefficients), were taken from the official site of Rosstat
– Russian Federal Service of State Statistics, Moscow, Russia, available at:
http://www.gks.ru (Rosstat, 2016). Additional sources of information for correction of
possible errors in the official statistics for arable and cultivated lands
were found in Lyuri et al. (2010).
Meteorological information about daily precipitation data were provided by
the RIHMI World Data Center (2016, http://aisori.meteo.ru/ClimateR). Information about
soil characteristics and LS factor (relief factor), which are also requested
for soil erosion rate calculation, were collected for the initial calculation
of soil losses on period 1980 and it is only available in the form of paper
worksheets. In the calculations of soil erosion rates, it was assumed that
these parameters remain unchanged since 1980 until 2012. It is planned to
consider possible changes to the relief factor due to changes in arable
areas. Information about maximum water discharge were collected from
Hydrological Yearbooks, which are available only in printed version and they
are not publicly accessible since 1991, because of they collected by
Hydrometeorological Service of Russian Federation and concentrated in State
Hydrological Institute. It is possible to receive access to them only by
official request.
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Russian Science Foundation, project no.
15–17–20006.
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