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Navarro Hevia2015
Navarro Hevia2015
Navarro Hevia2015
ABSTRACT
Construction associated to land development, such as roads and railroads, promote severe land degradation. Cutslope sediment yield is one of
the major pollutants on waters close to the road and railroad network. To estimate road impact, soil erosion (E), sediment yield (SY) and
morphological evolution of a railroad cut in Palencia (Spain), were studied using erosion nails, during the periods 1998–1999, 1999–2000
and 2000–2010. Data from two sample plots were analyzed by an ANOVA for repeated measures. Slope morphological evolution was
estimated using a cubic polynomial regression, while E and SY were calculated by integration. The top and the toe of the slope eroded
and accumulated 0·5 m respectively, evolving into a concave/convex slope profile. The mean measured E was 220 Mg ha1 y1. SY was
31 Mg ha1 y1, ranging from 109 Mg ha1 y1 to 24 Mg ha1 y1. Sediment yield was 4·5 times higher during the first year, than in all
subsequent years. Results showed a decreasing trend and a stabilization in E and SY rates. However, both rates remain high and critical over
the analyzed time, with regards to soil formation, water protection, land degradation and infrastructure maintenance. Copyright © 2015 John
Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words: road erosion; erosion nails; sediment yield; landscape degradation
Martínez-Zavala (2008) found that the total soil loss from a Mediterranean–continental area in the short-medium
roadbanks on unpaved forest roads in Los Alcomocales term (1998–2000 and 2000–2010), using erosion nails to
Natural Park (S. Spain), was 5 and 6 times higher than those show the severity of the problem. We should note that
from the roadbed and the roadfills, respectively, using a rain- there is a lack of work studying erosion on steep road
fall simulator. Jordán-López et al. (2009) studied thirty six slopes under natural conditions in our region, in Spain
rainfall simulations on road plots. They found that road and many other countries, as well as during periods longer
cutslopes produced the highest runoff coefficient (85·9%), to 10 years (García-Ruiz et al., 2015). In this manner,
being the total soil erosion on the roadbanks 3 and 18 times knowing the erosion rates, the sediment yield and the
higher than those from the roadbeds and the roadfills, slope evolution of this kind of cutslopes in a long term,
respectively. According to this, Forman et al. (2003) sug- it will be possible to design more integrated roads in the
gested that the main principle of environmental engineering landscape and select better erosion and sediment control
to build roads and minimize erosion with a worthy ecologi- measures to minimize their impact.
cal result is molding fill and cutslopes.
Some researchers use rainfall simulators to study road
MATERIAL AND METHODS
erosion (Arnáez et al., 2004; Croke et al., 2005; Cerdà,
2007; Jordán & Martínez-Zavala, 2008; Martínez-Zavala The study was conducted on the Palencia-Magaz railroad
et al., 2008; Foltz et al., 2009; Jordán-López et al., 2009; (latitude: 41°58′42″; longitude: 4°29′31″; altitude: 740 m).
Dong et al., 2012; Cao et al., 2013; Luo et al., 2013), Climate is temperate Mediterranean with hot and dry sum-
although there are few studies using natural rainfall because mers. The mean annual temperature is 11·9 °C. The annual
of they are more time-consuming and involve more precipitation is 430 mm, and it is uniformly distributed dur-
materials and effort (Arnáez & Larrea, 1995; Megahan ing the year. The relationship between the highest (559 mm)
et al., 2001; Navarro et al., 2002; Sidle et al., 2004; and the least (309 mm) annual precipitation during the study
Ramos-Scharrón & MacDonald, 2005; Rijsdijk et al., period was 1·8 and CV was 21·6%, suggesting that rainfall
2007; Negishi et al., 2008; Xu et al., 2009). However, this was quite uniform. The drought period is between June
way estimates more accurately road erosion rates and how and September, meanwhile the humid period is from Octo-
erosion affects maintenance, slope evolution and impacts ber to May, with a high probability of ground frost. The
on surface waters and landscape. In this manner, Megahan rainfall erosivity factor is low, 52 hJ cm m2 h1
et al. (2001) indicated that soil erosion in roadcuts can be (MAGRAMA, 2013).
more than 240 Mg ha1 y1. Also the long-term source of The loamy railroad cuts comprise horizontal/subhorizontal
sediment is from the cutslopes, and cutslope erosion can layers of silty-clay deposits (Figure 1a). This lithology is very
increase road landslides (Haigh et al., 1995) and sediment common in Miocene detritic terrains from the interior water-
in streams (Megahan & King, 2004). Sidle et al. (2006) sheds in Spain. The cuts are between 6 and 8 m long and pres-
showed that landslides occurred 25 to 350 times more fre- ent more than 75% angle slope. The soil texture is silt-loam,
quent in forest roads than in pristine forests; Motha et al. clay or clay-loam, making a block-like structure. pH is almost
(2004) estimated that agricultural roads in Australian water- 9 and O.M. < 0·5%. Carbonate and active lime content are
sheds contribute about 10 to 500 times more sediment to high, although phosphorus and potassium are low, thus limit-
water than forest areas, and other studies suggest that the ing soil fertility. The soil is not saline. Soil saturated
sediment load in water affected by roads ranges between hydraulic-conductivity is 5–10 mm h1. The slopes have been
36% in agriculture watersheds (Minella et al., 2009) and bare (vegetation cover: 0–10%) because they were regraded
15% in urban watersheds (Nelson & Booth, 2002). in late 1997. The few herbaceous plants grow mainly at the
We must take into account that there are 8 million km of toe of the slope (Figure 1).
roads in North America (Forman et al., 2003) and Soil erosion was measured using erosion nails in two
150,000 km of railroads (UNECE, 2015); the length of high plots installed on the railroad cuts in 1998 (Figure 1). The
speed roads in China is going to reach 100,000 km (Cheng plots were representative of the landscape-morphological
et al., 2015); the European Union has a road network of unit studied (6 m wide and 8 m long). Each plot had three
4·3 million km and a railroad length of 211,000 km (EC, nail columns along the slope gradient 1·5 m apart from one
2015) and there are 165,000 km of paved roads and another. Each column contained six nails, each spaced 1 m
14,000 km of railroads in Spain. These data show the impor- from the next. In this way, we measured erosion without
tance of the erosion linked to these infrastructures and the altering the natural conditions of the cuts (Hudson, 1993).
high degree that land degradation could be. Also, according The first measurement was taken in June 1998, 75 days after
to García-Ruiz et al. (2015), “erosion should be measured to the establishment of the plots, so the soil was in a natural
assess the environmental impacts of erosion and conserva- state (Haigh, 1985). We measured again in June 1999, June
tion practices, the development of erosion prediction 2000 and 10 years later, in April 2010. Soil lowering was
technologies, and the implementation of conservation poli- measured using an erosion microbridge (Navarro & San
cies”. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the soil Martín, 2000) supported on the erosion nails (Figure 2)
erosion (E), the sediment yield released (SY) and the (±0·5-mm accuracy). Soil lowering was considered positive
morphological evolution of a loamy railroad cutslope, in (erosion) and soil accumulation, negative (deposition).
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
192 J. NAVARRO-HEVIA ET AL.
Figure 1. Aspect of the slope and plot design during the study period. Observe the lack of vegetation. (a) Plot installation, 1998; (b) year 1999; (c) year 2000
and (d) year 2010. This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ldr
Measurements were taken 17·5 cm to the left/right of each sample points, below the regolith layer and on the soil crust).
nail to avoid its influence on erosion. We obtained Soil shear strength was obtained as in Navarro et al. (2014),
72 data/year and 216 data in the three years (1999, 2000 using a vane shear tester (25 data). The soil bulk density of
and 2010). the parent material and the accumulated regolith were calcu-
Different soil properties were assessed (Figure 3) to better lated by means of the cylinder method (Coile, 1936), while
understand the processes responsible for erosion, the null that of the surface crust was obtained using the paraffin
revegetation and to convert the soil lowering into a soil ero- method (Porta et al., 1994). The crust thickness and its
sion rate. A field penetrometer was used to measure soil roughness were measured as in Saleh (1993). Knowing the
resistance to penetration (72 surface sample points; 21 bulk densities of the eroded soil, the soil crust and the accu-
mulated sediment, as well as the slope morphological evolu-
tion allowed for the calculation of erosion and sediment
yield.
Data Analysis
Erosion data were analyzed by an ANOVA with repeated
measures (one measure each year) with three factors (two
plots, six nail rows/plot and three columns to record the soil
lowering/accumulation) in a hierarchical–factorial pattern.
The expression of the model is:
Y ijk;t ¼ μ þ ωi þ θj þ ωθij þ λkðjÞ þ δt þ ωδit þ θδjt
þλδktðjÞ þ ωθδijt þ εijk;t
i = row (1,.0·6); j = plot (1·2); k = column (1,.0·6 in each
plot); t = period (1(T1) = 1998–1999; 2(T2) = 1999–2000; 3
(T3) = 2000–2010); Yijk;t = soil lowering (cm) of the nail in
column k, in row i, in plot j, during the period t; μ = general
mean effect; ωi = row effect i; θj = plot effect j; ωθij = i row
with j plot interaction; λk(j) = column k in plot j effect;
δt = period t effect; ωδit = i row with t period interaction;
Figure 2. Microbridge used to measure erosion (Navarro & San Martín,
2000) (no scaled). This figure is available in colour online at θδjt = plot j with t period effect; λδkt(j) = k column in j plot
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ldr with period t interaction; ωθδijt = triple interaction of row i,
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
EROSION IN STEEP CUT SLOPES (SPAIN) 193
Figure 3. Measuring: soil resistance to penetration (a); crust and regolith thickness (b); bulk densities of the regolith and parent horizon (c) and “popcorn”
surface and crust roughness (d). This figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ldr
plot j and period t; εijk;t = random error in the nail (column k, the sediment yield (SY), which is the sediment released
row i, plot j, period t). out from the morphological unit to the railroad drainage net-
The comparison of means was carried out using the work (Renard et al., 1997; García-Ruiz et al., 2015). To do
Tukey test (α = 0·05) and the residual analysis using the nor- so, the different bulk densities between the denuded parent
mality, sphericity and homogeneity of variances tests. material and accumulated sediment must be considered.
We accordingly calculated the eroded (We) and accumulated
(Wa) material in a profile graph, through integration of the
Morphological Evolution
equations for the profile of the cut slope from each period
The evolution of the railroad cut was determined by a poly- (T1 = 1999; T2 = 2000 and T3 = 2010). The horizontal projec-
nomial regression (third degree), in which the data were an- tion of the initial slope profile was considered equal to
alyzed by a global test of the sum of the square residuals and 6·174 m. The weights (Mg ha1) of the eroded (We) and
a test of significance to verify the regression level. Coordi- accumulated (Wa) material were calculated considering the
nates of the 72 nails on the ground (Xt, Pt) for each period bulk densities of the parent material (γpm), the accumulated
(t) were plotted on a graph of the slope profile, considering regolith (γreg) and the surficial crust (γcr).
nail distances (1 m), the distance from the first nail to the
top of the slope (1·9 m) and the distance from the last nail
to the foot of the slope (1·16 m). The initial length of the
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
cut was L = 8·06 m, and its mean slope tanϕ= 83·91%,
with ϕ= 40°. The initial equation of the slope profile Lowering/Accumulation Balance on the Cutslope
(Po) is: It is impossible to give a unique result about the soil lower-
PoðxÞ¼ -L:sen ϕ þ x:tan ϕ x∈½0;6:174 m: ing of the cutslopes, because the process is complex. There-
fore, we have to present how the plots, the rows and
The profile was adjusted in the [x1, x6] interval and was columns eroded to understand it during the entire period.
elongated with tangents to the polynomial at points x1 and The ANOVA for the study showed that there are neither sig-
x6, up to the intersection with the coordinate axis. The nificant differences between plots (pv = 0·4981), nor over
coordinates of the nails in the profiles for each year were time (pv = 0·5136) at a significance level of 0·05, related with
calculated with the recorded lowering (Li) in the three pe- soil erosion, as the plots have the same parent material and
riods (L1, L2 and L3) using the following equations: were built in the same year. It means that plots eroded at
Soil Erosion and Sediment Yield similar rate under same processes. Figure 4 shows the LS-
Soil detachment or soil erosion (E) is often expressed as the means test for the mean soil erosion (soil lowering) of the
mean soil lowering in the specific geomorphologic unit rows and columns in each plot during the study. The row
(Blong & Humphreys, 1982; Haigh, 1985), when there is order is related to their position inside the cut slope, row 1
no deposition of sediment along the slope. Nevertheless, being located at the top of the slope and row 6 at the toe.
an erosion/accumulation balance has to be carried out when The number of the columns (1, 2 or 3) runs from right to left.
accumulation appears on the slope. This balance will show Figure 4a shows significant differences between rows in
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
194 J. NAVARRO-HEVIA ET AL.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
EROSION IN STEEP CUT SLOPES (SPAIN) 195
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
196 J. NAVARRO-HEVIA ET AL.
Beckedahl, 2015). For example, Megahan et al. (2001) iden- E Mg ha1 y1 ¼ 22:865 X þ 46136 with R2 ¼ 0:97:
tified six factors controlling erosion on forest road slopes:
The erosion/accumulation balance allowed to quantify the
steepness, length, kind and age of the slope, vegetation
sediment yield to the railroad ditches that flow directly into
cover and rainfall energy. Xu et al. (2009) analyzed road
the drainage network (SY). In 1999 and 2000, SY was 109
erosion over a period of two years in slopes with 30° steep-
and 24 Mg ha1 y1, respectively. After the following
ness and different slope lengths (1 to 4 m). They observed
10 years SY10 was 243 Mg ha1, which represents a mean
that runoff and erosion decreased with slope length, with
rate of 24 Mg ha1 y1 and suggests a rate stabilization over
lower values being related to longer slope lengths (3, 4 m),
possibly because greater sedimentation is produced when time. SY99 was 4·5 times higher than SY 00-10 . Thus, al-
the slope length increases. However, Megahan et al. though it would be necessary more data, we fitted the rela-
(2001) found that steepness was the main factor in slopes tionship between SY and time (Figure 6b) to estimate
from 3 to 16 m in length. Bochet et al. (2010) also found that possible sediment effects throughout the railroad drainage
slope type and angle were the main factors controlling soil network (sediment is closely related to maintenance cost of
erosion in road slopes in Eastern Spain. the railroad):
In our case, E was fitted to a line over time (Figure 6a).
SY Mg ha1 y1 ¼ 66:613 X 0:487 with R2 ¼ 0:51:
Although it is not representative because of we only have
data for three periods, it could be considered to estimate soil The high SY99 value may be explained as a result of the
detachment for loamy cutslopes. These ones are very com- slope regrading carried out in 1997. Over time, rainfall
mon in our country, and there are not other studies in it washes the weathered regolith on the slope and sediment ac-
based in natural conditions and this type of soil: cumulation on the foot-slope lowers the steepness and runoff
Table II. Annual rainfall, soil detachment (E), accumulated sediment, sediment yield (SY) and delivery ratio (DR)%
Rainfall Soil detachment (E) Accumulated sediment Sediment yield (SY) Delivery ratio
(mm) (Mg ha1) (Mg ha1) (Mg ha1) (DR = SY/E) %
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
EROSION IN STEEP CUT SLOPES (SPAIN) 197
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT, 27: 190–199 (2016)
198 J. NAVARRO-HEVIA ET AL.
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