Author(s)

O. Vigiak & G. Sterk

Abstract

Empirical water erosion modelling for soil and water conservation planning at catchment-scale O. Vigiak & G. Sterk Chair of Erosion and Soil and Water Conservation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands Abstract Empirical water erosion models may simplify the erosion processes, but are straightforward, require few input data and can be useful in pinpointing ar- eas exposed to high erosion risk. For soil and water conservation planning, the capacity of the empirical models to locate the erosion patterns correctly may be more useful than the ability to accurately quantify erosion losses. The aim of this study was testing two empirical water erosion models, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and the Morgan, Morgan and Finney model (MMF), in predicting spatial erosion patterns in a small (310 ha) catchment at Alora, southern Spain. The available data set comprised cli- matic data, a topographic map, a soil map and a land use map. Both models were incorporated i

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