Assessing the contribution of nonhydraulic forces to the destruction of bonds between soil particles during water erosion

Abstract

It has been experimentally shown with monoaggregate model samples of chernozemic soil as an example that the weakening of cohesion between soil particles is due to the molecular interaction of soil particles with water as a dipole substance rather than to the hydraulic forces of the flow. Therefore, soil erosion should be considered as a two-stage process. First, the bonds between particles are weakened due to the interaction of soil particles with water; then, the particles that lost bonds with neighboring ones are entrapped by the flow. Thus, the erosion rate of a consolidated soil is determined by the destruction of bonds between particles during their interaction with water, rather than the flow velocity, although this factor also affects the erosion rate.