Journal of the Japan Society of Erosion Control Engineering, Vol.55,No.5,p.11-21,2003

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Rainfall influence on sediment yielded from small and steep catchments,
Kyushu mountain region, Japan, using simple sampling tanks

Hoon KIM, Tomomi MARUTANI,Mio KASAI

Abstract

The volume of fine particle sediment, measured over several days using simple sampling tanks at the mouth of small mountainous catchments, was analyzed in relation to rainfall and landform attributes. The relationships between the effective cumulative rainfall calculated from daily and antecedent rainfall and the sediment volume sampled for several days were shown by power functions with high correlation coefficients. However the power functions are determined primarily by increases in sediment at 1400mm in effective cumulative rainfall and 600mm and/or 900mm in effective event rainfall. Because catchment areas addressed here were remarkably small and slopes were steep compared with other catchments, exponents of the power function were smaller than the results from measurement data from other catchments. These results indicate that overland flow might influence the sediment yield from the surface of small, steep catchments.
Key words:small mountainous catchment, simple sampling tanks, fine particle sediment, effective cumulative rainfall,
power function