A modified portable rainfall simulator for soil erosion assessment under different rainfall patterns

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126052

Journal of Hydrology

Volume 596, May 2021, 126052

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126052 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Customized rainfall patterns can be programmed in the new InfiAsper panel.
•
Rainfall patterns are provided to the new panel using text file on a SD memory card.
•
The Arduino enable efficient control of the rainfall simulator shutter rotation.
•
The control of shutter rotation allow varying precipitation intensity.
•
The portable simulator InfiAsper can apply rain with variable precipitation intensity.

Abstract

Rainfall simulators are devices used in studies on erosion and water infiltration in soil and have different classifications and operating characteristics. Most of these devices simulate rainfall with constant precipitation intensity (PI), which does not represent the characteristics of natural rainfalls and may lead to significant differences in studies on soil and water losses. Here we have developed an automatic PI control system for a rotating simulator equipped with nozzles, through the regulation of the shutter disc rotation, to simulate different rainfall patterns. We have set up an electronic control system that acts on the motor power frequency inverter, allowing the user to enter the desired rainfall pattern through a text file, recorded on a micro SD memory card. For evaluation purposes, different rainfall patterns were programmed for 40 min duration, with maximum PI peaks of 110 mm h⁻¹ and total depth of 30 mm. The new panel of the modified simulator, built with user-friendly interface, enables the selection of the desired rainfall pattern and the operating mode (manual or automatic). The rainfalls were adequately simulated and, even with variation in PI, the modified simulator showed application uniformity above 75%.

Introduction

The search for sustainable use of soil resources is one of the main motivations for the study on erosion and the development of conservation practices that mitigate this natural process commonly accentuated by anthropic action. The world demand for food, fiber and fuel and the increase in areas with agricultural production and pastures have intensified erosion (Merten and Minella, 2013).

The erosive process is associated with large-scale factors, such as global warming (Lal et al., 2011), and with the characteristics of rainfall, climate, management, topography, as well as soil types and cover (Hamanaka et al., 2019), and is considered a global concern because it degrades the natural resources of soil and water, leading to major economic losses. In countries of tropical climate, water erosion is the main cause of losses in the agricultural yield of food crops, resulting in increased production cost and environmental contamination (Andrade et al., 2011).

Soil losses can be generated with natural rainfall or through rainfall simulators, which are tools used in hydrogeomorphological or hydrological studies, in the field and in the laboratory (Askoy et al., 2012), related to runoff, infiltration and sediment loss due to use, cover and management in different soil classes (Sarasty et al., 2017, Boulange et al., 2019). These devices make it possible to simulate rainfall with different characteristics (precipitation duration and intensity) and have been used to evaluate soil erodibility (Mhaske et al., 2019) and the impact of revegetation (Askoy et al., 2012), besides generating information that validates conservation practices and models for estimating soil losses, provided that they have characteristics similar to those of natural rainfall, such as drop diameter and kinetic energy (Munster et al., 2006). In addition to being simple, portable and economical (Mhaske et al., 2019), the simulators should have low water consumption (Iserloh et al., 2012), precise control of precipitation intensity and provide a relationship between simulated/natural rainfall kinetic energy and uniformity above 75% (Alves Sobrinho et al., 2008).

According to the form of production of the drops (Morin et al., 1967), rainfall simulators are classified into two categories, being equipped with drippers, composed of capillary tubes, or with nozzles, which operate with a wide range of precipitation intensity and drop diameter, enabling the formation of a more random drop falling pattern, similar to that of natural rain. The simulator developed by Alves Sobrinho et al. (2008), called InfiAsper, operates with two pressurized nozzles and is one of the most used devices in Brazil to simulate rainfall with constant precipitation pattern, according to previous calibration (Carvalho et al., 2015, Panachuki et al., 2015, Valim et al., 2016, Almeida et al., 2018, Marques et al., 2019, Moraes et al., 2019). However, as natural rainfall events are variable in space and time (Assouline, 2009), the natural process of soil loss is best reproduced when the simulators have mechanisms for varying the intensity during the occurrence of precipitation (Nielsen et al., 2019). According to Alavinia et al. (2019), rainfalls simulated with constant intensity do not represent the characteristics of natural rainfalls, leading to significant differences in the results of soil losses.

The combination of different precipitation intensities during rainfall is called a rainfall pattern (Luo et al., 2020) and is considered one of the main factors that influence soil erosion (Huihui et al., 2016). Rainfall pattern classified as delayed, when the peak of precipitation intensity occurs on the final third of the rain (Flanagan et al., 1988), tends to generate higher rates of soil loss and runoff volume considering that the highest intensity occurs in water-saturated soil (Wang et al., 2016, Sofia et al., 2019). Therefore, the possibility of adapting and updating the original control panel of InfiAsper with the application of a rotation microcontroller, to obtain different pre-set rainfall patterns, is a fundamental improvement in its operation and, consequently, in the quality of the obtained data. The study was conceived based on the hypothesis that the variation in the shutter disc rotation in the rainfall simulator InfiAsper (Alves Sobrinho et al., 2008) makes it possible to change precipitation intensity and obtain different rainfall patterns with no simultaneous alteration in the shutter opening. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate whether the variation in the shutter disc rotation, associated with its opening, enables the obtaining of different rainfall patterns in the rainfall simulator InfiAsper.

Section snippets

Material and methods

The rainfall simulator used in this study was the InfiAsper, developed by Alves Sobrinho et al., 2002, Alves Sobrinho et al., 2008), composed of five independent modules, which facilitate transport and operation in the field (Fig. 1). It has two fixed spray nozzles (Veejet 80.150 model), which must be positioned at 2.30 m height from the ground during operation (Fig. 2a). The nozzles are located above the shutter’s overlapping discs (Fig. 2b), whose rotation is defined by the input frequency of

Precipitation intensity, water consumption and efficiency

With the tested rotations (140, 200, 260, 400, 600 and 800 rpm) and disc openings (33, 44, 56 and 60 mm), the device showed PI ranging from 0.7 to 123.4 mm h⁻¹, Cw from 0.02 to 2.53 L min⁻¹ and Ew from 41.2 to 56.8% (Table 1). These results indicate the ability of the equipment to apply rains with different PI values, which resembles natural events that normally do not present constant intensity.

These values indicate that InfiAsper is more efficient and requires lower water volume than the 13

Conclusions

The installation of electronic components in the InfiAsper control panel makes it possible to vary shutter rotation during its operation according to previous programming, enabling the simulation of rainfalls with different rainfall patterns. Rainfalls with PI peaks of 110 mm h⁻¹ and duration of 40 min were adequately simulated by the device, with uniformity above 75%. It is possible to simulate other rainfall patterns, with different PI and duration, by changing the settings on the device’s

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Pietro Menezes Sanchez Macedo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - review & editing. Marinaldo Ferreira Pinto: Methodology, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Teodorico Alves Sobrinho: Validation, Writing - review & editing. Nivaldo Schultz: Writing - original draft, Funding acquisition. Thiago Altamir Rodrigues Coutinho: Investigation, Data curation. Daniel Fonseca de Carvalho: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Resources, Writing

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, specifically the PPGA-CS/UFRRJ. We acknowledge the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – Brasil (CNPq) for the financial support (Process 422394/2018-1). This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance Code 001.

References (36)

M. Alavinia et al.
Effects of rainfall patterns on runoff and rainfall-induced erosion
Int. J. Sedim. Res.
(2019)
J. Boulange et al.
Portable rainfall simulator for plot-scale investigation of rainfall-runoff, and transport of sediment and pollutants
Int. J. Sedim. Res.
(2019)
T. Iserloh et al.
A small portable rainfall simulator for reproducible experiments on soil erosion
Soil Tillage Res.
(2012)
T. Iserloh et al.
European small portable rainfall simulators: A comparison of rainfall characteristics
Catena.
(2013)
G.H. Merten et al.
The expansion of Brazilian agriculture: soil erosion scenarios
Int. Soil Water Conservat. Res.
(2013)
S.N. Mhaske et al.
A comprehensive design of rainfall simulator for the assessment of soil erosion in the laboratory
Catena.
(2019)
M.A. Mohamadi et al.
Effects of rainfall patterns on runoff and soil erosion in field plots
Int. Soil Water Conservat. Res.
(2015)
G. Sofia et al.
On the linkage between runoff generation, land drainage, soil properties, and temporal patterns of precipitation in agricultural floodplains
Adv. Water Resour.
(2019)
W. Wang et al.
Effects of four storm patterns on soil loss from five soils under natural rainfall
Catena.
(2016)
H. Askoy et al.
Rainfall simulator for laboratory-scale assessment of rainfall-runoff-sediment transport processes over a two-dimensional flume
Catena.
(2012)

W.S. Almeida et al.

Effect of soil tillage and vegetal cover on soil water infiltration

Soil Tillage Res.

(2018)

T. Alves Sobrinho et al.

Desenvolvimento de um infiltrômetro de aspersão portátil

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

(2002)

T. Alves Sobrinho et al.

A portable integrated rainfall and overland flow Simulator

Soil Use Manag.

(2008)

N.S.F. Andrade et al.

Impacto técnico e econômico das perdas de solo e nutrientes por erosão no cultivo da cana-de-açúcar

Engenharia Agrícola.

(2011)

S. Assouline

Drop size distributions and kinetic energy rates in variable intensity rainfall

Water Resour. Res.

(2009)

D.F. Carvalho et al.

Hydric erosion and water infiltration in different soil management system and corn development stage

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

(2015)

D.F. Carvalho et al.

Padrões de precipitação e índices de erosividade para as chuvas de Seropédica e Nova Friburgo, RJ

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

(2005)

D.F. Carvalho et al.

Perdas de água e solo sob diferentes padrões de chuva simulada e condições de cobertura do solo

Engenharia Agrícola.

(2012)

Cited by (15)

Simulated rainfall in Brazil: An alternative for assesment of soil surface processes and an opportunity for technological development
2024, International Soil and Water Conservation Research
Rainfall simulators (RS) have been used, above all, to evaluate hydrological processes related to soil water infiltration, surface runoff and soil erosion. They allow repeatability of rain application with different precipitation intensities in field and/or laboratory conditions and should produce events with physical characteristics similar to natural rain. In this manuscript, we carried out a bibliometric and scientometric analysis of studies with simulated rainfall in Brazil to assess the temporal evolution of publications, the main topics addressed and the degree of technological development of the equipment. We searched for the terms “rainfall simulator” OR “simulated rainfall” AND “Brazil” in the Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO and Google Scholar databases. We found 143 articles published in the last 37 years (1985–2022). Our findings indicate that the main research areas covered in papers are soil erosion (57.34%), soil water infiltration (24.47%), nutrient losses (9.8%) and RS development and calibration/assessment (8.39%). In recent years, the number of published papers in international high-impact factor journals has increased. Most of the papers (49.65%) refer to studies carried out by institutions located in the south and southeast regions of Brazil. Moreover, there is a large gap of studies on simulated rainfall in other regions of Brazil, where important biomes such as the Cerrado, Amazon, Caatinga, and their transitions are located. This study informs research priorities on soil erosion under simulated rainfall and provides a bibliographic database that can assist in more detailed future analyses.
Influence of cover crops and tillage on organic carbon loss in Mediterranean olive orchards
2024, Soil and Tillage Research
Olive (Olea europaea L.) is one of the main crops in the Mediterranean area, with Spain leading its production. The majority of the plantations are on rainfed land, poor soils with steep slopes. Regarding to soil, tillage (T) is the main management system used by farmers. Consequently, erosion and the resulting soil organic carbon (SOC) losses associated to it are one of the main environmental problems of olive production. Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices in permanent crops comprise the sowing of groundcovers or cover crops (CC) between the rows of olive trees. CC protect the olive orchard from erosion, preventing soil degradation. However, the relationship between the erosion and SOC losses under CC and T need to be better understood. In a four-year period (2003–2007) water, soil and SOC losses by erosion were measured in micro-plots (1 ×1 m²) that were managed with T and CC in eight study zones in Andalusia (Southern Spain). At the same time, the characteristics of all rainfall events during the study period were registered, and soil cover was estimated from images taken during the field campaigns. SOC output was observed to be statistically positively correlated to runoff and erosion. The loss of water, SOC and sediment were mainly affected by the characteristics of the rainfall events and soil cover. The type of soil or the typology of the olive grove plantation were not so important for the loss of SOC under conservation agriculture management. However, these facts were especially significant for the T conditions. Conversely to T, where only 22.4 % of soil was protected, CC provided a 65.7 % cover throughout the season. This better protection of the soil provided by the CC, resulted in a lower influence of the rainfall events in the loss of water, soil and SOC. This was not the case in the T systems. The conservation management was responsible for a 36.7 % average reduction in runoff and an 85.5 % reduction in erosion compared to T, which decreased SOC loss associated with sediment by 76.4 %.
Soil, water and nutrient loss under simulated rainfall patterns in an area fertilised with chicken litter
2023, Journal of Hydrology
The process of erosion, characterised by the loss of soil, water and nutrients, is the main cause of soil degradation and has numerous consequences for the agricultural sector and the environment. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the loss of soil, water and nutrients, and the chemical attributes of the soil, in an area with and without fertilisation with chicken litter under simulated rainfall in different rainfall patterns, in addition to the financial impact resulting from the loss of nutrients. Using the InfiAsper simulator, rainfall with Advanced (AV), Intermediate (IN), Delayed (DL) and Constant (CT) patterns were simulated in an area of a Dystric Acrisol, following a randomised block design, in a 2 × 4 factorial scheme totalling eight treatments, with four replications. The treatments comprised the areas with (WCL) and without (NCL) the surface application of chicken litter and subjected to the four rainfall patterns, giving a total of 32 experimental units. Rainfall was applied for 40 min at an average intensity of 45 mm h⁻¹. The mean values of the runoff depths did not vary as a function of fertilisation, however there were differences in soil loss between the NCL and WCL treatments with the DL (10.55 and 34.98 g m⁻²) and CT (7.22 and 15.88 g m⁻²) patterns. The greatest nutrient loss in the WCL treatments, irrespective of the rainfall pattern, is related to the presence of chicken litter. In the WCL treatments, the IN pattern afforded the greatest loss of N (26.76 g kg⁻¹) and P (14.58 g kg⁻¹), while the AD pattern gave the greatest value for K (8.42 g kg⁻¹). In the WCL plots, the mean value for total organic carbon loss was 202.01 g kg⁻¹. In WCL areas, the greatest financial losses were seen for P₂O₅, reaching US$ 12.86 ha⁻¹ in Baixada Fluminense, for sowing/transplanting in April, and 3.7 times greater in the Serrana region of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in January. In NCL areas, N presented greater financial loss. It can be concluded that in an area with the surface application of chicken litter, the rainfall pattern interferes with the loss of N, P and K, and that financial losses from the loss of nutrients caused by water erosion can be even more marked when considering areas of greater slope.
Soil loss and runoff obtained with customized precipitation patterns simulated by InfiAsper
2022, International Soil and Water Conservation Research
Citation Excerpt :
In general, these values indicate adequate soil structure, aeration, and water infiltration in the experimental area. The InfiAsper rainfall simulator with the new control panel (Macedo et al., 2021) (Fig. 1a) was used to evaluate the effect of precipitation patterns on soil erosion. Its programming included five precipitation patterns differentiated by the occurrence of the highest intensity (PI): advanced (AD), intermediate (IN), inverted intermediate (II), and delayed (DE) (Fig. 1b), besides the constant pattern (CT).
Applying constant precipitation intensity, which does not occur in natural events, is one of the main limitations concerning rainfall simulators in soil erosion studies. The present work evaluated the InfiAsper rainfall simulator operating with a new control panel to program rainfalls with different precipitation intensities (PI). Infiltration rates and soil and water losses were evaluated in a Distrophic Acrisol (clay loam texture) with simulated rainfalls of 30 mm and duration of 40 min, considering advanced (AD), intermediate (IN), delayed (DE), and inverted intermediate (II) patterns, all with PI peaks of 110 mm h⁻¹, and a constant (CT) pattern. The experimental design was in randomized blocks with five treatments (rainfall patterns) and experimental units measuring 2.5 × 2.5 m. The simulator worked satisfactorily, applying the rainfall according to the preconfigured programs. The simulated rainfall with the CT and II patterns did not promote runoff nor soil loss. Infiltration and runoff rates varied according to the applied rainfall pattern, reaching 97.8 and 27.3 mm h⁻¹ (AD), 82.1 and 39.5 mm h⁻¹ (IN), and 76.2 and 49.7 mm h⁻¹ (DE), respectively. Soil loss and surface runoff totaled each 4.77 g m⁻² and 3.9 mm (AD), 6.70 g m⁻² and 6.8 mm (IN), and 6.03 g m⁻² and 7.0 mm (DE). The InfiAsper simulator modified enables varying precipitation intensity besides obtaining satisfactory results in the field and information consistent with the expected characteristics of natural rainfall patterns. In the intermediate and delayed rainfall patterns, soil and water losses are higher than in the advanced.
Development and Calibration of a Portable Field Rainfall Simulator with Square Pattern Spray Nozzles
2024, SSRN
Experimental study on hydrological effects of typical permeable pavement
2024, Shuili Fadian Xuebao/Journal of Hydroelectric Engineering

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Research papersA modified portable rainfall simulator for soil erosion assessment under different rainfall patterns

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Material and methods

Precipitation intensity, water consumption and efficiency

Conclusions

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgments

Int. J. Sedim. Res.

Int. J. Sedim. Res.

Soil Tillage Res.

Catena.

Int. Soil Water Conservat. Res.

Catena.

Int. Soil Water Conservat. Res.

Adv. Water Resour.

Catena.

Rainfall simulator for laboratory-scale assessment of rainfall-runoff-sediment transport processes over a two-dimensional flume

Catena.

Effect of soil tillage and vegetal cover on soil water infiltration

Soil Tillage Res.

Desenvolvimento de um infiltrômetro de aspersão portátil

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

A portable integrated rainfall and overland flow Simulator

Soil Use Manag.

Impacto técnico e econômico das perdas de solo e nutrientes por erosão no cultivo da cana-de-açúcar

Engenharia Agrícola.

Drop size distributions and kinetic energy rates in variable intensity rainfall

Water Resour. Res.

Hydric erosion and water infiltration in different soil management system and corn development stage

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

Padrões de precipitação e índices de erosividade para as chuvas de Seropédica e Nova Friburgo, RJ

Revista Brasileira de Engenharia Agrícola e Ambiental.

Perdas de água e solo sob diferentes padrões de chuva simulada e condições de cobertura do solo

Engenharia Agrícola.

Research papers
A modified portable rainfall simulator for soil erosion assessment under different rainfall patterns