The rainfall erosivity index is one of the most important factors influencing soil erosion. For this reason, investigating the accuracy of rainfall erosivity indices is very important in different climatic regions. The objective of this research was to investigate different rainfall erosivity factors and determine the most appropriate ones for use in the central and northeastern parts of Iran. | E. M. KIASSARI, D. NIKKAMI, M. H. MAHDIAN, E. PAZIRA Research Article Turk J Agric For 36 (2012) 365-378 © TÜBİTAK doi: Investigating rainfall erosivity indices in arid and semiarid climates of Iran Elaheh Moussavi KIASSARI1,*, Davood NIKKAMI2, Mohammad Hossein MAHDIAN3, Ebrahim PAZIRA4 1 Department of Soil Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran - IRAN 2 Research Institute for Water Scarcity and Drought in Agriculture and Natural Resources, . Box 13445-1136, Tehran - IRAN 3 Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization, Ministry of Jihad-e-Agriculture - IRAN 4 Department of Soil Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran - IRAN Received: Abstract: The rainfall erosivity index is one of the most important factors influencing soil erosion. For this reason, investigating the accuracy of rainfall erosivity indices is very important in different climatic regions. The objective of this research was to investigate different rainfall erosivity factors and determine the most appropriate ones for use in the central and northeastern parts of Iran. For this reason, necessary data were collected from 92, 6 and 10 soil erosion research plots in Khorasan Razavi, Semnan and Isfahan provinces, respectively. The rainfall intensities were recorded, as was the sediment yield associated with storm events, and 63 different erosivity indices based on rainfall intensity were computed for these soil erosion research stations. The results demonstrated that the P # I 230, P # I 260, and (P # t) 2 d rainfall intensity-based indices had the most significant correlations, with results of (P 1 (total kinetic energy of all of the rain falling at more than 25 mm h–1) indices are the most important rainfall erosivity indices. These 3 indices were introduced by Lal (1976), Wischmeier and Smith (Salles et al. 2002), and Hudson (Nanko et al. 2004), respectively, and are suggested
