Anti-erosive effectiveness of Eucalyptus coppices through the cover management factor estimate

In this paper sediment yield data, measured from 1978 to 1994 in two small Calabrian basins (W2 and W3) rea€orested with eucalyptus trees (Eucalyptus occidentalis Engl.), and the Modi®ed Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) applied in a distributed form are used to evaluate the anti-erosive e€ects of eucalyptus cover. At ®rst step the sediment yield measurements observed in W2 basin are used to estimate a single cover management factor representative of the eucalyptus coppice and equal to the median value (0.164) of the cover management factor values calculated for each runo€ event. Then, the reliability of the selected representative cover management factor is veri®ed on W3 by comparing the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the measured sediment yield with the CDF of the calculated one. Finally, the temporal analysis of the crop and management factor is developed searching, at monthly and annual scale, the correlation between crop anti- erosive e€ectiveness and rainfall erosivity index.