Introduction: Changes in land use and agricultural management have caused a strong increase in sediment and particulate phosphorus input into the Miyun reservoir. The simulation of the relevant runoff and sediment fluxes at the mesoscale needs adequate procedures, adapted to a semiarid monsoon climate and regional land-use pattern. Results: The modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE-M) was integrated into the STOFFBILANZ model to calculate daily soil losses in the entire Miyun catchment area. The results are well within the range of monitoring data from Wischmeier plots that are located inside the investigation area. For the reference year 2009, soil erosion was estimated at an average of 952 kg ha −1 year
For particle-bound substances such as phosphorus, erosion is an important input pathway to surface waters. Therefore, knowledge of soil erosion by water and sediment inputs to water bodies at high spatial resolution is essential to derive mitigation measures at the regional scale. Models are used to calculate soil erosion and associated sediment inputs to estimate the resulting loads. However, validation of these models is often not sufficiently possible. In this study, sediment input was modeled on a 10 × 10 m grid for a subcatchment of the Kraichbach river in Baden-Wuerttemberg (Germany). In parallel, large-volume samplers (LVS) were operated at the catchment outlet, which allowed a plausibility check of the modeled sediment inputs. The LVS produced long-term composite samples (2 to 4 weeks) over a period of 4 years. The comparison shows a very good agreement between the modeled and measured sediment loads. In addition, the monitoring concept of the LVS offers the possibility to identify the sources of the sediment inputs to the water body. In the case of the Kraichbach river, it was found that around 67% of the annual sediment load in the water body is contributed by rainfall events and up to 33% represents dry-weather load. This study shows that the modeling approaches for calculating the sediment input provide good results for the test area Kraichbach and the transfer for a German wide modeling will produce plausible values.
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