Soil erosion by water is the most important land degradation problem worldwide.In this paper a new procedure was developed to estimate the rainfall-runoff erosivity factor(R)based on Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM)satellite-estimated precipitation data,which consists of 3-h rainfall intensity data.In this method,R was calculated as the product of the maximum 180-min rainfall intensity and the rainfall energy.This procedure was applied to the Daling River basin in Liaoning Province,China,R in terms of yearly,monthly and event-based rainfall in 2005 was computed separately using TRMM 3B42 data.The TRMM data showed a significant correlation with the interpolated rain-gauge data.Furthermore,because the TRMM data are based on rainfall intensity,they can represent the impact on erosion more accurately.It reflects both the spatial distribution and the intensity of rainfall.The procedure is a new approach to estimate the rainfall erosivity for soil water erosion modeling,especially in areas lacking rain-gauge stations.
