Abstract

The study aimed to shelter the exposed soil surface once the embankments/road side slopes are constructed. To promote economical development, the need of roads is necessary. The embankments usually remain bare once the road is constructed which leads to the rills and gullies. This causes on-site and off-site affects in the form of road degradation, road accidents, siltation in the reservoir channel and worsening of the water quality. To observe the similar condition, a comprehensive field study on the bare soil surface was conducted in the Perak, Malaysia to understand the behavior of the detached soil particles and the water flow under different simulated rainfall intensities. The rainfall data for the Perak was collected and analyzed from Meteorological Department, Malaysia. The slope degree chosen to conduct the experimental study was 30° as the road side slopes are usually constructed with the gradients of 1 on 1.5 (≈30°). This study further includes the determination of kinetic energy of the rain drop for the given rainfall intensities and the determination of different soil physical and chemical properties. However, during the field study the maximum erosion rates observed for a period of 2 h under the rainfall intensity of 40 and 52 mm/h were observed to be 5.78×10-5 and 9.39×10-5 m3/sec, respectively.

Keywords:

Bare soil surface, raindrop-kinetic energy, soil detachment, water discharge,

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Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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