ABSTRACT:
Soil erosion from clear-weather snowmelt was measured on four .01-acre (.004-hectare) plots located on a bare mountain slope in northern Utah. Soil loss was minimal during three seasons, ranging from 3 to 26 pounds per acre (3.4-29.1 kilograms/hectare). Surface runoff accounted for between 1 and 3.5 percent of the snowpack's water equivalent, and infiltration during snowmelt likely was much higher than snowmelt. Such small soil losses do not warrant vseof the snowmelt factor, fis, in the universal sril loss equation in mountain terrain where a moderately deep snowpack persists throughout winter.
Footnotes
George E. Hart is an associate professor, Watershed Science Unit, Utah State University, Logan, 84322. Steven A. Loomis is a hydrologist with the Bureau of Land Management, Denver, Colorado 80225. This study was funded by the Mclntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Act and is Journal Paper 2656 of the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. Support for the senior author while on sabbatical leave at the Mt. Hood National Forest, Gresham, Oregon, is acknowledged.
- Copyright 1982 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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