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 s mall Calabrian basins (W2 and W3) reafforested with eucalyptus trees ( Eucalyptus occidentalis Engl.), and the Modified Universal Soil Loss E quation (MUSLE) applied in a distributed form are used to evaluate the anti-erosive effects of eucalyptus cover. At first step the sediment yield measurements observed in W2 basin are used to estimate a single cover management factor representative of the eucalyptus coppice and e qual to the median value (0.164) of the cover management factor values calculated for each runoff event. Then, the reliability of the select ed representative cover management factor is verified on W3 by compari ng the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the measured sediment yield with the CDF of the calculated one. Finally, the temporal analy sis of the crop and management factor is developed searching, at month ly and annual scale, the correlation between crop anti-erosive effecti veness and rainfall erosivity index. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.