Author(s): Xiaoming Zhang; Sihong Wu; Wenhong Cao
Linked Author(s): Wenhong Cao
Keywords: Sediment Delivery Ratio (SDR); Soil erosion; Sediment delivery; Scale; Typical watershed unit
Abstract: Sediment delivery ratio (SDR) is an indicator to demonstrate the capacity of erosion and sediment delivery of a certain basin. Based on systematic review on SDR studies at home and abroad during the last 50 years, this paper analyzed and discussed whether SDR has dependence characteristics on scale or not and its fractal characteristics. It was concluded that (1) the definition of SDR formula has embedded in the characteristic of scale; (2) SDR in different watersheds at home and abroad showed correlations with certain temporal and spatial scales, which means SDR depends on its scale; (3) SDR could be quantitatively expressed and be scaling using fractal dimension under a certain temporal and spatial scale. The authors were firstly found that values of SDR and fractal dimension (D) at 1 km2 typical watershed unit were approximately equal to the coefficients namely ' DRS and D in the corresponding scaling model (−). This paper also pointed out that the study and calculation of SDR cannot be correct without considering its scale dependence. It is a valid and useful approach to construct SDR scaling models by using fractal dimension, which could be an interesting research topic regarding on SDR scaling in the future. FS=S DR D ' DR
Year: 2013