Performance of Grass Strips for Sediment Control in Okinawa

Japan Agricultural Research Quarterly
ISSN 00213551
NII recode ID (NCID) AA0068709X
Full text
41-04-05.pdf685.34 KB

Reddish fine sediment runoff from upland fields has been one of the causes of coastal environmental pollution in Okinawa, Japan. Planting grass strips is a well-known measure to reduce runoff of nonpoint-source pollutants from agricultural fields. In this study, we investigated the performance of a centipede grass (Eremochloa ophiuroides (Munro) Hack.) strip for reducing sediment runoff from an upland field in Okinawa, focusing on strip length and sediment aggregate size as factors affecting performance. Field experiments were conducted in field plots with a 4.0-m by 31.5-m bare source area on a Kunigami-Maji soil using three strip lengths (0.5, 1.5 and 3.0 m) under natural conditions. The sediment removal efficiencies were 24% for the 0.5-m strip, 36 to 54% for the 1.5-m strip and 73% for the 3.0-m strip. The strips trapped well the sediment aggregates larger than 0.02 mm in diameter, regardless of strip length. The longer strip trapped more aggregates of the 0.002-0.02-mm size class, which were dominant in the eroded sediment runoff from the plots. The strips poorly trapped aggregates smaller than 0.002 mm. The sediment trapping resulted primarily from deposition of sediment due to slowdown of surface flow.

Date of issued
Creator SHIONO Takahiro YAMAMOTO Nobuyuki HARAGUCHI Noburo YOSHINAGA Anshun
Subject

centipede grass

Kunigami-Maji soil

reddish fine sediment

Publisher Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
Available Online
NII resource type vocabulary Journal Article
Volume 41
Issue 4
spage 291
epage 297
DOI 10.6090/jarq.41.291
Rights Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences
Language eng

Related Publication