R-factor

The \(R\)-factor is a measure used in erosion and (overland) sediment modelling to quantify the effect of rainfall on soil erosion. It is typically defined in the context of the RUSLE equation, in which gross erosion for an agricultural parcel is estimated.

Specifically, the \(R\)-factor is a measure for the total erosivity of a number of rainfall events within a defined timeframe (year, month, number of days). The factor is computed by calculating the erosivity for every rainfall event in a timeseries, and taking the sum of the erosivity of all events in one year. These yearly values can be used to compute an average value, the R-factor, presenting the rainfall erosivity for a given period. An in-depth explanation of the formula’s is given here.

This code is developed as a function of an analysis of rainfall erosivity in Flanders. The results found in the example notebooks are also found in this report).

Get started

This package makes use of Python (and a limited number of dependencies such as Pandas and Numpy). To install the package:

pip install rfactor

For more information, check out the installation instructions and follow the example in the Get started page.

Data & application to Flanders

Input rainfall data are provided by the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM), which are also available via waterinfo. The input rainfall data from the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) are not shared in this project. Please contact the RMI if you would like to obtain the a copy of the RMI rainfall input data.

The erosivity data calculated with the rainfall input data are provided by the partners of this project, and are used as test data for analysing the R-factor for Flanders.

Documentation

The documentation can be found on the R-factor documentation page.

Code

The open-source code can be found on GitHub.

License

This project is licensed under GNU Lesser Public License v3.0, see here for more information.

Contact

For technical questions, we refer to the documentation. If you have a technical issue with running the model, or if you encounter a bug, please use the issue-tracker on github: [https://github.com/watem-sedem/rfactor/issues](https://github.com/watem-sedem/rfactor/issues)

If you have questions about the history or concept of the model that are not answered in the documentation please contact KU Leuven via https://ees.kuleuven.be/en/geography/modelling/erosion/watem-sedem/contact.

Do you have questions about the application of R-factor in Flanders? Please contact Departement Omgeving of the Government of Flanders on cn-ws@omgeving.vlaanderen.be