Water-erosion related parameters under steady runoff-rate for different soil tillage methods

Tillage influences both surface and subsurface soil physical conditions, and consequently the values of the factors related to the rainfall-water erosion process. A field experiment using simulated rainfall was conducted from October, 1999 to May, 2000, in the Planalto Sul Catarinense region, Lages, Santa Catarina State, Brazil, in order to evaluate some of the factors related to the rainfall-water erosion process under steady runoff-rate, with three different soil tillage methods. The soil used in the study was a clayey Typic Hapludox with 0.14 m m(-1) slope at the experimental site. The evaluated treatments consisted of (a) reduced tillage (chiseling + disking), (b) typical conventional tillage (plowing + double-disking), and (c) modified conventional tillage (plowing + double-disking + double hand-harrowing). The first two treatments were applied in continuously cultivated soil and the last one in continuously uncultivated-soil (control treatment). Both the soil surface random-roughness and soil surface residue cover were characterized in the treatments through measurements immediately before and after tillage, on the day before simulated rainfall application. The rainfall test was applied by the time of soybean planting, at a constant intensity of 64 mm h(-1) and varying durations (until completing 30-min of constant runoff in each treatment). Soil tillage increased the random-surface roughness and decreased surface cover to different degrees, depending on the type of equipment. Reduced tillage was the most effective treatment in terms of both increasing random surface roughness and maintaining the soil surface cover. The periods until starting runoff and reaching runoff-peak were relatively long and little affected by tillage treatments. Runoff velocity, sediment concentration and size of eroded sediments in the runoff-water, and soil loss rate increased with the decrease in both surface roughness and surface cover, while rainfall-water infiltration in the soil decreased. Runoff discharge and its associated runoff coefficient-parameter C in the Rational Equation - increased as surface roughness and surface cover decreased.