Journal of Watershed Management Research

Severe lack of data on soil erosion and sedimentation in many national watersheds requires the application of appropriate empirical methods for their estimation. This study is aimed to evaluate the efficiencies of Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and some of its variations including MUSLT, MUSLE-E, MUSLE-S and AUSLE in semi-arid climates. This study was undertaken on standard plots in the ranges of Margsar, range and livestock management research station, Jashlobar, Mahdishahr, Semnan province. For this, all of required variables and input data for the respective models have been calculated for the respective plots. Finally, the estimations from both models and measured sediments have been compared during 15 showers. The results of t student’s t-test showed that there is no significant difference between MUSLE-E, MUSLT and MUSLE-S models and the measured sediment. Also, the results from efficiencies of the models by Nash-Sutcliffe method as well as relative root mean square error (RRMSE) showed that MUSLE-E, MUSLT and MUSLE-S models have higher efficiencies than other variations.