Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2016KS185B

Quantifying Ephermeral Gully Erosion and Evaluating Mitigation Strategies with Field Monitoring and Computer Modeling

Institute: Kansas
Year Established: 2016 Start Date: 2016-03-01 End Date: 2019-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $30,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $52,010

Principal Investigators: Aleksey Sheshukov

Project Summary: Ephemeral gullies (EG) are localized areas of soil erosion that form from concentrated water flow in upland areas. Erosion from EGs in agricultural fields contributes a substantial fraction of annual upland sediment, and does so disproportionally (relative to other sources) during higher-flow events. Some general causes of EG erosion are known, however, mechanisms related to EG formation, location and geomorphological properties related to storm characteristics, and amount of soil lost are not understood well enough either to quantify the importance of EGs relative to other sediment sources in a watershed or to guide targeting of EG-effective best management practices (BMP). Therefore, the overall aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the sources of sediment, quantify the sediment amounts, and evaluate the mitigation strategies to soil erosion contribution from ephemeral gullies on agricultural fields.