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| Titel |
The interaction of soil, vegetation and snow - results of a case study in the Central Swiss Alps |
| VerfasserIn |
Matthias H. Mueller, Katrin Meusburger, Georg Leitinger, Lionel Mabit, Christine Alewell |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250092672
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-7032.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| In mountainous areas snow movements can yield enormous erosive forces that are
responsible for major soil loss. In this presentation we aim to assess and highlight the
importance of snow-gliding as soil erosion agent. Since snow-gliding is dependent of surface
roughness, four land use/land cover types in a sub-alpine area in Switzerland were
investigated. We used two different approaches to estimate soil erosion rates: the fallout
radionuclide 137Cs and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The RUSLE
model is suitable to estimate soil loss by water erosion, while the 137Cs method integrates soil
loss due to all erosion agents involved. Thus, we hypothesised that the soil erosion rates
determined with the 137Cs method are higher and that the observed discrepancy
between the erosion rate of RUSLE and the 137Cs method can be largely explained by
snow-gliding. Cumulative snow-glide distance was measured for the sites in the winter
2009/2010 and modelled for the surrounding area with the Spatial Snow Glide
Model (SSGM). Measured snow glide distances range from 0 to 189 cm with lower
values for the north facing slopes. Further, with increasing surface roughness of the
vegetation a reduced snow-glide distance was observed. The latter relationship
is of crucial importance in the light of conservation planning and the observed
land use changes in the Alps. Our hypothesis was confirmed, as the difference of
RUSLE and 137Cs derived erosion rates was correlated to the measured snow-glide
distances (R2 = 0.73; p |
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