Developing an erodibility triangle for soil textures in semi-arid regions, NW Iran

•The high dependency of soil erodibility on the soil textures in the semi-arid area•The remarkable role of soil moisture content in controlling runoff and erodibility in the fine textured soils•Large variability of soil erodibility from an event to other event with increase in silt and clay content•Developing a model to estimation of the erodibility of semi-arid soils using silt and clay content•Proposing a soil erodibility triangle for rapid estimation of the erodibility in the semi-arid area

There is a strong need to develop a simple method for rapid estimation of erodibility using readily available data. In this study, soil erodibility was measured using eleven soil textures at the plot scale (60 cm × 80 cm) on a slope of 9% in a semi-arid region. A total of 110 soil erosion experiments were conducted using ten simulated rainfalls (50 mm h− 1 for 30 min). A regression model was developed based on silt and clay content (R2 = 0.82, p < 0.001) and was applied to estimate erodibility for 231 soils in the textural triangle. Kriging was used to spatial interpolate erodibility using these data to unknown soils on the textural triangle. A soil erodibility triangle was developed using kriging technique and its accuracy was evaluated using seven other soils. The technique showed a 5.4% error and allowed the prediction of soil erodibility in semi-arid areas by using the soil erodibility triangle.

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