Knowledge on the factors influencing water erosion is fundamental for the choice of the best land use practices. Rainfall, expressed by rainfall erosivity, is one of the most important factors of water erosion. The objective of this study was to determine rainfall erosivity and the return period of rainfall in the Coastal Plains region, near Aracruz, a town in the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, based on available data. Rainfall erosivity was calculated based on historic rainfall data, collected from […]

The use of the Universal Soil Loss Equation to predict erosion losses and for conservation planning requires an evaluation of index values of local rainfall erosivity. As a contribution to knowledge on these indexes in the coastal zone of Ceará State, the objectives of this study were: (a) to determine the R factor and the annual EI30 index values, its monthly distribution, probability of occurrence and return periods in Fortaleza, Ceará State, Brazil for the period of 1962 to 1981, […]

The correlation between the erosivity index EI30 and the rainfall coefficient (Rc) for the period of 1962 to 1981, in Fortaleza (CE), was evaluated to analyze the feasibility of the Rc use to update erosivity values from 1982 to 2000 in this county. An equation that could be used to estimate erosivity in other locations of the coastal region of Ceará State, where there are no rain gauge charts available, was a second aim. A high correlation coefficient (r = […]

Rainfall erosivity at Teodoro Sampaio was studied through methodology proposed by Wischmeier and Smith (1958). A set of 812 erosive individual rains was selected, from a continuum series of nineteen years of nonrecording rain gauge data, according to Wischimeier (1959), Wischmeier and Smith (1978) and Cabeda (1976) and proposed with changes by Carvalho (1987). All the selected rains were computed by the package of Cataneo et al. (1982). The rainfall erosivity factor computed was 7172 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 y-1, […]

A set of 874 erosive individual rainfall occurrences was selected from a continuous serie of twenty-three years of recording rain gauge data. All the selected rainfall occurrences were analized. The rainfall erosivity factor computed was 7074 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 y-1, which is expected to occur at least once every 2.33 years, with a probability of occurrence of 42.92%. The values of the annual erosivity indexes at that site expected for the return periods of 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 years, were respectively 6,696, 8,730, 10,076, […]

The objectives of this paper were: to verify the adequacy of different rainfall erosivity indices, to compare two equations to calculate the rainfall kinetic energy and to estimate the USLE K-factor (soil erodibility) of two soils (Dark – Red Latosol and Red – Yellow Podzolic soil) from the Sete Lagoas (MG) region. There was not a significant difference between the studied equations to calculate rainfall kinetic energy. The EI30 index showed to be a good rainfall erosivity predictor and can […]