Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions

Abstract Understanding soil erosion and sediment transport from the hillslope scale to the regional scale is crucial for studies on water quality, soil‐water conservation, the lateral carbon cycle, environmental zoning and vulnerability. However, most existing erosion and sediment transport models a...

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Main Authors: Xianhong Xie, Xu Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2024-09-01
Series:Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004307
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author Xianhong Xie
Xu Liang
author_facet Xianhong Xie
Xu Liang
author_sort Xianhong Xie
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Understanding soil erosion and sediment transport from the hillslope scale to the regional scale is crucial for studies on water quality, soil‐water conservation, the lateral carbon cycle, environmental zoning and vulnerability. However, most existing erosion and sediment transport models are only applicable at the hillslope scale or for small watersheds with fine spatial resolutions (typically much less than 1 km). This study presents a process‐based soil erosion and sediment transport model for model applications designed for applications with coarse spatial (e.g., ≥10 km) and temporal (e.g., from hourly to daily) resolutions. This new model, referred to as VIC‐SED, effectively accounts for interactions between erosion and hydrological processes. This is achieved by tightly coupling the erosion processes with a hydrologically based Three‐layer Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC‐3L) land surface model (LSM) and to a multi‐scale routing (MSR) model. VIC‐SED considers the impacts of (a) the spatio‐temporal variability of rainfall intensity on erosion processes and (b) soil moisture on the soil detachment process. VIC‐SED is evaluated in two watersheds. Results demonstrate that VIC‐SED is capable of reproducing water and suspended sediment discharges at coarse spatial resolutions and varying temporal scales varying from 15‐min to daily intervals. Our study indicates that the VIC‐SED model is a promising tool for studying and assessing the impacts of climate and land cover changes on suspended sediment yields over large regions using coarse spatial and temporal resolutions.
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spelling doaj-art-3db76d1c23af48d19cceadf7a044d4922025-08-20T01:55:12ZengAmerican Geophysical Union (AGU)Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems1942-24662024-09-01169n/an/a10.1029/2024MS004307Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal ResolutionsXianhong Xie0Xu Liang1State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science Faculty of Geographical Science Beijing Normal University Beijing ChinaDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh PA USAAbstract Understanding soil erosion and sediment transport from the hillslope scale to the regional scale is crucial for studies on water quality, soil‐water conservation, the lateral carbon cycle, environmental zoning and vulnerability. However, most existing erosion and sediment transport models are only applicable at the hillslope scale or for small watersheds with fine spatial resolutions (typically much less than 1 km). This study presents a process‐based soil erosion and sediment transport model for model applications designed for applications with coarse spatial (e.g., ≥10 km) and temporal (e.g., from hourly to daily) resolutions. This new model, referred to as VIC‐SED, effectively accounts for interactions between erosion and hydrological processes. This is achieved by tightly coupling the erosion processes with a hydrologically based Three‐layer Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC‐3L) land surface model (LSM) and to a multi‐scale routing (MSR) model. VIC‐SED considers the impacts of (a) the spatio‐temporal variability of rainfall intensity on erosion processes and (b) soil moisture on the soil detachment process. VIC‐SED is evaluated in two watersheds. Results demonstrate that VIC‐SED is capable of reproducing water and suspended sediment discharges at coarse spatial resolutions and varying temporal scales varying from 15‐min to daily intervals. Our study indicates that the VIC‐SED model is a promising tool for studying and assessing the impacts of climate and land cover changes on suspended sediment yields over large regions using coarse spatial and temporal resolutions.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004307soil erosionsediment transportcoarse spatial and temporal resolutionprocess‐based modelland surface model
spellingShingle Xianhong Xie
Xu Liang
Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
soil erosion
sediment transport
coarse spatial and temporal resolution
process‐based model
land surface model
title Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
title_full Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
title_fullStr Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
title_full_unstemmed Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
title_short Coupling Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport Processes With the Variable Infiltration Capacity Model (VIC‐SED) for Applications Suitable With Coarse Spatial and Temporal Resolutions
title_sort coupling soil erosion and sediment transport processes with the variable infiltration capacity model vic sed for applications suitable with coarse spatial and temporal resolutions
topic soil erosion
sediment transport
coarse spatial and temporal resolution
process‐based model
land surface model
url https://doi.org/10.1029/2024MS004307
work_keys_str_mv AT xianhongxie couplingsoilerosionandsedimenttransportprocesseswiththevariableinfiltrationcapacitymodelvicsedforapplicationssuitablewithcoarsespatialandtemporalresolutions
AT xuliang couplingsoilerosionandsedimenttransportprocesseswiththevariableinfiltrationcapacitymodelvicsedforapplicationssuitablewithcoarsespatialandtemporalresolutions