Representing Global Soil Erosion and Sediment Flux in Earth System Models

Tan, Zeli; Leung, L. Ruby; Li, Hong‐Yi; Cohen, Sagy

doi:10.1029/2021MS002756

Title: Representing Global Soil Erosion and Sediment Flux in Earth System Models

Journal Article · 02 January 2022 · Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002756 · OSTI ID:1838217

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Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland WA USA
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Houston Houston TX USA
Department of Geography University of Alabama Tuscaloosa AL USA

Abstract Soil erosion produces enormous amounts of sediment, carbon, and nutrient fluxes from land to rivers, thus playing crucial roles in global biogeochemical cycles and food security. To predict soil erosion in the context of climate and land use changes, we explicitly parameterize cropland management actions (i.e., irrigation, conserved agriculture, and crop residue management) and geological factors (i.e., lithology and glacier) in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) soil erosion module. The erosion model is calibrated using a global‐scale regionalized parameter calibration method. The spatial variabilities of the modeled and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) based benchmark soil erosion are consistent across vegetation, climate and soil properties. Compared with independent data, our model shows a bias reduction in 59% of the observations relative to the RUSLE‐based soil erosion, with 53% of the bias reduction exceeding 50%. This improvement is mainly due to a better representation of the topographic effect on soil erosion. Our results indicate that conserved agriculture practices have effectively reduced soil erosion in cropland by over 25% in the United States and Argentina. In contrast, irrigation has increased soil erosion in many Asian countries. For upland sediment flux, our model is consistent with the WBMsed benchmark data in inter‐basin variability but could be more skillful in simulating intra‐basin variability because it couples soil erosion and sediment flux explicitly. The developed model provides useful skills for more realistic predictions of soil erosion and river sediment dynamics under environmental changes.

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Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

OSTI ID:: 1838217

Journal Information:: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Journal Name: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 14; ISSN 1942-2466

Publisher:: American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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