An upland soil erosion model derived from the basic principles

Starting from the basic erosion principles, an upland soil erosion model to predict soil loss by overland flow from individual storms on forested hillslopes can be derived in the form where Q_s is total soil loss for a storm event, n is roughness coefficient, x is down slope distance, K_f is soil erodibility factor, S is slope, α is slope exponent and Q is runoff. Values of n and α are to be determined for different environments and are 0·58 and 2·1 for a mixed pine forest ecosystem. A significant correlation (r = 0·933, n = 96) fits between the observed and predicted values using this expression, and the model fitting is good.