Evaluating erosion risk models in a Scottish catchment using organic carbon fingerprinting

Identification of hotspots of accelerated erosion of soil and organic carbon (OC) is critical to the targeting of soil conservation and sediment management measures. The erosion risk map (ERM) developed by Lilly and Baggaley (Soil erosion risk map of Scotland, 2018) for Scotland estimates erosion risk for the specific soil conditions in the region. However, the ERM provides no soil erosion rates. Erosion rates can be estimated by empirical models such as the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Yet, RUSLE was not developed specifically for the soil conditions in Scotland. Therefore, we evaluated the performance of these two erosion models to determine whether RUSLE erosion rate estimates could be used to quantify the amount of soil eroded from high-risk areas identified in the ERM.

The study was conducted in the catchment of Loch Davan, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Organic carbon loss models were constructed to compare land use specific OC yields based on RUSLE and ERM using OC fingerprinting as a benchmark. The estimated soil erosion rates in this study were also compared with recently published estimates in Scotland (Rickson et al. in Developing a method to estimate the costs of soil erosion in high-risk Scottish catchments, 2019).

The region-specific ERM most closely approximated the relative land use OC yields in streambed sediment however, the results of RUSLE were very similar, suggesting that, in this catchment, RUSLE erosion rate estimates could be used to quantify the amount of soil eroded from the high-risk areas identified by ERM. The RUSLE estimates of soil erosion for this catchment were comparable to the soil erosion rates per land use estimated by Rickson et al. (Developing a method to estimate the costs of soil erosion in high-risk Scottish catchments, 2019) in Scottish soils except in the case of pasture/grassland likely due to the pastures in this catchment being grass ley where periods of surface vegetation cover/root network absence are likely to have generated higher rates of erosion.

Selection of suitable erosion risk models can be improved by the combined use of two sediment origin techniques—erosion risk modelling and OC sediment fingerprinting. These methods could, ultimately, support the development of targeted sediment management strategies to maintain healthy soils within the EU and beyond.