Mesopotamia Journal of Agriculture

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to use some indices related to soil aggregate instead of soil erodibility factor KUSLE of the universal soil loss equation ( USLE ) for a selected calcareous soils. Twelve composite calcareous soil samples from 0 - 15 cm depth were collected from 12 different locations at Nineveh provenance. The selected soils were analyzed for five commonly used erodibility indices used for identify soil erodibility .These indices are ; Clay Aggregation Index (CAI ) , Clay Dispersion Ratio (CDR) , Clay Flocculation Index( CFI ), Dispersion ratio ( DR ), and Erosion Index of Bouyoucos ( EIB)
The results indicated that there is a highly significant positive correlation ( r = 0.891**) between EIB and KUSLE in comparison to the other criteria which pointed a weak correlation Also ,the results show through variance analysis that the mean of the criterion EIB values ( 3.651 ) was very close to the mean of the KUSLE values ( 3.839 ). These results mean that EIB is more reliable index for prediction the soil erodibility in calcareous soils.