Effects of agricultural land use on spatial and temporal distribution of soil erosion in small catchments:: Implications for modelling

Agricultural land use has important effects on states of the soil surface and on spatial organisation of the catchment, which determines runoff generation and routing. It interacts with geomorphic and climatic conditions to influence the main physical processes involved in soil erosion. Further, it induces great spatial and temporal changes in soil conditions. This paper proposes, in the light of the results of studies that have been carried out in the northern Paris Basin, an approach to take into account these effects and to improve the way to collect input variables for distributed runoff erosion models.