A unifying model framework for soil erosion, river bedload and chemical transport

A unified framework for simulating various transport processes in the environment is presented. It consists in a single set of partial differential equations. The main feature of this model framework is its exchange layer, which allows to treat several types of transfer between the soil and the surface water.

The model framework equations, termed transfer equations, is shown to reproduce three independently-published models developed for soil erosion, river bedload, and chemical transport respectively. By allowing the different processes to be represented within a single model framework, the transfer equations are therefore unifying the representation of particles and chemical fluxes in the environment. The transfer equations are implemented into the open-source software FullSWOF_1D. The code is verified against the approximation of an exact solution, assuring its proper functioning. A good adequacy is found between our numerical results and those published in the literature, attesting the capability of the transfer equations to unify modeling of soil erosion, river bedload, and chemical transport. Hence, the transfer equations can decrease the number of models to be used for simulating transfer of materials in the environment, and limit the number of computer codes to be developed and maintained. The transfer equations could also help in drawing parallels between different fields of hydrology.