A comparative study of rainfall erosivity for eastern and western Slovenia

Abstract

Climate in Slovenia has changed notably over the past century. As regional temperatures have risen, a more vigorous hydrologic cycle ensued; in many places the intensity of rainstorms has become greater. The seasonal distributions of rainfall has changed with significant implications for patterns of vegetation growth and hence for soil erosion. Due to predicted climate change increased frequency of extreme precipitation events can be expected during the time when soil is without plant cover and exposed to the erosive forces. In addition to ample daily and several day precipitation events, water erosion occurs with heavy rainfalls that last from couple of minutes to several hours. Overview of rainfall intensity index and rainfall erosivity, calculated with adapted USLE (universal soil loss equation) method, is given for three meteorological stations in Slovenia for period [1991][1992][1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006]. Analyzed locations are situated on different climate areas with noticeable different rainfall regime at western (Bilje at Nova Gorica, Rateče) and eastern (Murska Sobota) part of Slovenia.Key words: rainfall intensity, rainfall erosivity, soil water erosion, Slovenia IZVLEČEK PRIMERJAVA EROZIVNOSTI PADAVIN V ZAHODNI IN VZHODNI SLOVENIJIMeritve dokazujejo, da erozija na kmetijskih zemljiščih nikakor ni zanemarljiva in je najintenzivnejša na njivskih površinah. Podnebje se je v Sloveniji že spremenilo, temperature zraka in tal naraščajo, spreminja pa se tudi vodni cikel. Opažamo sezonsko preporazdelitev padavin, daljše in intenzivnejše poletne suše, pa tudi naraščanje intenzivnosti nalivov, kar vse močno vpliva na erozijske procese. Zaradi predvidenih klimatskih sprememb lahko pričakujemo povečano pogostost in intenziteto ekstremnih padavin v času, ko so tla brez rastlinskega 1 Assistant., B.Sc.Met.,

Mapping monthly rainfall erosivity in Europe

“…5). Comparing our results to the local study of Ceglar et al (2008) in western Slovenia, the most erosive period is August to September (Fig. 14).…”

“…Rainfall erosivity shows different patterns among the wet and dry seasons both in terms of magnitude and in relationship to rainfall amount (named erosivity density) (Hoyos et al, 2005, Meusburger et al, 2012, Borrelli et al, 2016, Panagos et al, 2016a). Monthly erosivity has been studied in some regions in Europe such Portugal (Ferreira and Panagopoulos, 2014, Nunes et al, 2016), Sicily (D'Asaro et al, 2007) and Calabria (Terranova and Gariano, 2015) in Italy, Ebro Catchment in Spain (Angulo-Martínez and Beguería, 2009), western Slovenia (Ceglar et al, 2008), north-eastern Austria (Klik and Konecny, 2013) and Czech Republic (Janeček et al, 2013). Nevertheless an assessment of monthly erosivity over Europe is still missing.…”

Spatial-temporal analysis of climate change impact on viticultural regions Valencia DO and Goriška Brda

“…In Slovenia, an area of 20.273 km 2 , there are three types of climate: Mediterranean, Alpine and Continental (Ogrin, 1996), hence the country offers great spatial-variable climate areas. The intensity of extreme weather events, such as heavy rainstorms, has increased during the period 1991-2006 in Goriška Brda and the frequency of extreme events is expected to increase in the future (Ceglar et al, 2008). Work by Rusjan (Rusjan et al, 2007) discussed the increased content of copper contamination in soil layers due to the usage of copper-based fungicides in vineyards in Goriška Brda.…”