Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The mechanism and stages of development of a field road gully in relation to changes in the surrounding land relief

The mechanism and stages of development of a field road gully in relation to changes in the... Abstract Ground roads located on slopes under agricultural use determine the direction of surface runoff, particularly during intensive rainfall. This results in their erosion and rapid downwearing. Its rate depends on the slope inclination, intensity of use of the road, and type of the eroded substrate. In a uniform slope system, such a process results in the development of two subsystems: one of the fields and the other of the ground road, separated with a low turfed ridge resembling a balk. In the loess areas of the Lublin Upland, the rate of notching of roads on slopes is considerable, reaching up to several centimetres annually (Miszczak 1960; Nowocień 1996; Janicki et al. 2002). Due to the physical properties of loess, and particularly its ability to retain vertical walls in the dry state, the lateral development of the slopes of the road landform is usually substantially delayed in relation to the rate of its notching. This results in the development of road gullies with a box-shaped profile (Gardziel, Rodzik 2000; Rodzik et al. 2008). On relatively gentle slopes with an inclination of up to several degrees, with cross-slope field orientation perpendicular to the road, the adjacent road constitutes the turning zone for cultivation. This results in transport of material from the field to the road, and then along the road down the slope. In such conditions, a road trough can develop, with simultaneous downwearing of the surface of the road and the adjacent fields. This particularly occurs in Roztocze, where informal roads run across long and narrow fields (Rodzik, Zgłobicki 2010). The proceeding erosion can eventually lead to a dissection of the trough with a gully. The identification of the mechanism of development of such road erosional landforms is facilitated by the analysis of the structure of soil profiles on gully scarps. The objective of the paper is to determine the mechanism and stages of development of a small road gully on the Nałęczów Plateau as an example of the development of field road gullies in loess areas. The location of the landform among arable fields and its small size permitted conducting detailed field research meeting the aforementioned objective. The field research was carried out in autumn 2005. Preliminary study results have been published (Rodzik et al. 2010) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annales UMCS, Geographia, Geologia, Mineralogia et Petrographia de Gruyter

The mechanism and stages of development of a field road gully in relation to changes in the surrounding land relief

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/de-gruyter/the-mechanism-and-stages-of-development-of-a-field-road-gully-in-KrbfsNnW6P

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the
ISSN
0137-1983
eISSN
2083-3601
DOI
10.2478/v10066-012-0043-2
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Ground roads located on slopes under agricultural use determine the direction of surface runoff, particularly during intensive rainfall. This results in their erosion and rapid downwearing. Its rate depends on the slope inclination, intensity of use of the road, and type of the eroded substrate. In a uniform slope system, such a process results in the development of two subsystems: one of the fields and the other of the ground road, separated with a low turfed ridge resembling a balk. In the loess areas of the Lublin Upland, the rate of notching of roads on slopes is considerable, reaching up to several centimetres annually (Miszczak 1960; Nowocień 1996; Janicki et al. 2002). Due to the physical properties of loess, and particularly its ability to retain vertical walls in the dry state, the lateral development of the slopes of the road landform is usually substantially delayed in relation to the rate of its notching. This results in the development of road gullies with a box-shaped profile (Gardziel, Rodzik 2000; Rodzik et al. 2008). On relatively gentle slopes with an inclination of up to several degrees, with cross-slope field orientation perpendicular to the road, the adjacent road constitutes the turning zone for cultivation. This results in transport of material from the field to the road, and then along the road down the slope. In such conditions, a road trough can develop, with simultaneous downwearing of the surface of the road and the adjacent fields. This particularly occurs in Roztocze, where informal roads run across long and narrow fields (Rodzik, Zgłobicki 2010). The proceeding erosion can eventually lead to a dissection of the trough with a gully. The identification of the mechanism of development of such road erosional landforms is facilitated by the analysis of the structure of soil profiles on gully scarps. The objective of the paper is to determine the mechanism and stages of development of a small road gully on the Nałęczów Plateau as an example of the development of field road gullies in loess areas. The location of the landform among arable fields and its small size permitted conducting detailed field research meeting the aforementioned objective. The field research was carried out in autumn 2005. Preliminary study results have been published (Rodzik et al. 2010)

Journal

Annales UMCS, Geographia, Geologia, Mineralogia et Petrographia – de Gruyter

Published: Jun 1, 2014

There are no references for this article.