Soil Erodibility: K Factor (ESDAC - JRC, 2014)

The greatest obstacle to soil erosion modelling at larger spatial scales is the lack of data on soil characteristics. One key parameter for modelling soil erosion is the soil erodibility, expressed as the K-factor in the widely used soil erosion model, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). The K-factor, which expresses the susceptibility of a soil to erode, is related to soil properties such as organic matter content, soil texture, soil structure and permeability.The K-factor is a lumped parameter that represents an integrated annual value of the soil profile reaction to the process of soil detachment and transport by raindrops and surface flow (Renard et al., 1997). As such soil erodibility is best estimated by carrying out direct measurements on field plots (Kinnell, 2010). However, since field measurements are expensive and often not easily transferable in space, researchers investigated the relation between “classical” soil properties and soil erodibility. The Global Soil Erosion map (GeoTIFF format) at 25km resolution is available for free download in the European Soil Data Centre (ESDAC) [https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/resource-type/datasets], along with other resampled input datasets including the R-factor, C-factor, LS-factor, and other RUSLE outputs (2001 and 2012 soil loss). Citation: Borrelli P., Robinson D.A., Fleischer L.R., Lugato E., Ballabio C., Alewell C., Meusburger K., Modugno, S., Schutt, B. Ferro, V. Bagarello, V. Van Oost, K., Montanarella, L., Panagos P. 2017. An assessment of the global impact of 21st century land use change on soil erosion. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02142-7]Nature Communications, 8 (1): art. no. 2013