Combination of 137Cs and 210Pb Radioactive Atmospheric Fallouts to Estimate Soil Erosion for the Same Time Scale

Naturally occurring 210 Pb and artificial 137 Cs fallouts are widely used as radioactive tracers for the determination of water-induced soil erosion for different time scales equal to 50 and 100 years, respectively. There exist several calibration models useful to convert the variation of the inventory of these radiotracers in cultivated soil compared to its value on non-disturbed soil to a soil erosion rate. The most comprehensive calibration models are based on a mass balance approach. In the present work, a new calibration model is proposed. It consists on the generalization of the mass balance approach to a cultivated soil subject to two successive and continuous periods of cultivation. The proposed model combines 210 Pb and 137 Cs fallouts for the same time scale by relaxing the constraint on 210 Pb fallout from being used for 100 years’ time scale. The model was applied successfully to hypothetical cases and can be used to measure soil erosion rates for practical cases. It is important to note that the proposed model has two main advantages. First, the complementarity between 210 Pb and 137 Cs fallouts is for the same time scale and not for different time scales, as usually considered and believed in this field. Second, 210 Pb fallout is used for time scales less than 100 years. This makes the model useful to estimate soil erosion rates for two successive periods of cultivation. To the best knowledge of the authors, the combination of 210 Pb and 137 Cs fallouts for the determination of soil erosion rate variation due to change in cultivation practices for the same time scale has never been developed or applied in the past.