Filling the gap between plot and landscape scale – eight years of soil erosion monitoring in 14 adjacent watersheds under soil conservation at Scheyern, Southern Germany

摘要

Abstract. Watershed studies are essential for erosion researchbecause they embed real agricultural practices, heterogeneity along the flowpath, and realistic field sizes and layouts. An extensive literature reviewcovering publications from 1970 to 2018 identified a prominent lack ofstudies, which (i)?observed watersheds that are small enough to addressrunoff and soil delivery of individual land uses, (ii)?were considerablysmaller than erosive rain cells ( <400 ha ), (iii)?accounted for theepisodic nature of erosive rainfall and soil conditions by sufficiently longmonitoring time series, (iv)?accounted for the topographic, pedological,agricultural and meteorological variability by measuring at high spatial andtemporal resolution, (v)?combined many watersheds to allow comparisons, and(vi)?were made available. Here we provide such a dataset comprising 8?years of comprehensive soil erosion monitoring (e.g.?agriculturalmanagement, rainfall, runoff, sediment delivery). The dataset covers 14adjoining and partly nested watersheds (sizes 0.8 to 13.7 ha ), which werecultivated following integrated (four crops) and organic farming (sevencrops and grassland) practices. Drivers of soil loss and runoff in allwatersheds were determined with high spatial and temporal detail (e.g., soilproperties are available for 156 m~(2) blocks, rain data with1 min resolution, agricultural practices and soil cover with dailyresolution). The long-term runoff and especially the sediment delivery dataunderline the dynamic and episodic nature of associated processes,controlled by highly dynamic spatial and temporal field conditions (soilproperties, management, vegetation cover). On average, the largest 10 % ofevents lead to 85.4 % sediment delivery for all monitored watersheds. Theanalysis of the Scheyern dataset clearly demonstrates the distinct need forlong-term monitoring in runoff and erosion studies.