Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
5
A Case Study of Uncertainty:
Applying GLUE to EUROSEM
J.N. QUINTON
1
, T. KRUEGER
2
, J. FREER
3
,
R.E. BRAZIER
4
AND G.S. BILOTTA
5
1
Lancaster Environment Centre, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, UK
2
School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
3
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
4
School of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
5
School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK
5.1 Introduction
ate on an event basis; and (6) to be useful as a
design tool for selecting soil protection measures.
This was the basis for a collaborative research
programme to turn these requirements into real-
ity. In all the EUROSEM project ran from 1988
through to 1994, supported by two tranches of
funding from the EU, and was also a core compo-
nent of two further EU-funded projects: Modelling
Within Storm Sediment Dynamics (MWISED) and
Soil Productivity Indices and Erosion Sensitivity
(SPIES). The first operational versions of the model
were released in 1992, with further releases in
1994 and 1998. The model has also influenced the
development of other erosion models, notably the
Limburg Soil Erosion Model (LISEM: De Roo
et al
.,
1996). An Italian team lead by Lorenzo Borselli is
currently developing a new version of the model,
incorporating new process descriptions originating
from more recent process research and the outputs
of the MWISED project (Borselli
et al
., 2008).
There have been a number of attempts to eval-
uate EUROSEM against measured data. Quin-
ton (1994, 1997) evaluated the model against data
from the Woburn Erosion Reference Experiment
(Quinton & Catt, 2004). Quinton selected param-
eters to which the model was most sensitive and
sampled four values of each from measured distri-
butions and applied the model to single storms.
The results demonstrated, for the first time, that
At the time of writing, it is 10 years since Morgan
et al
. (1998a) published their paper describing the
European Soil Erosion Model (EUROSEM). Since
then the model has been downloaded by over 700
scientists from 64 countries worldwide. It remains
one of the few truly dynamic and distributed soil
erosion models.
The concepts behind EUROSEM date back
over 20 years. It was first proposed at the Workshop
on Erosion Assessment and Modelling held in
Brussels in December 1986. At that workshop,
Chisci and Morgan (1986) were critical of the mod-
els being developed in the US and believed that
there was a potential to utilise process-based
research from within the European Community to
develop something better. They set out six design
requirements: (1) to enable the risk of erosion to be
assessed; (2) to be applicable at field and catchment
scales; (3) to allow the contribution of sediment
and solutes from the land surface to water bod-
ies to be determined; (4) to provide reliable esti-
mates of erosion and solute concentrations for
comparison with acceptable standards; (5) to oper-
