تأثیر بقایای گیاه مرتعی درمنه برکاهش هدر رفت خاک

Soil erosion is one of the major hurdles to achieve sustainable development of agriculture and natural resources. Soil and water conservation is one of important methods for the natural resources management. In this respect, organic mulching is one of the soil conservation methods. In this research, the effect of Artemisia aucheri residue as mulch on runoff and soil loss was examined. Artemisia aucheri residue were in two sizes (4 and 16 cm length) and 0.35 cm width with a 70% vegetation cover which were tested in the laboratory conditions using a rainfall simulator. The experiments were carried out in a plot (with a size of 2*1*0.2 meter) where 0.2 m of the plot was filled with the silt-loam soil.  Plants residue mulch covered the soil surface and rainfall simulator poured water drops with 50 mm/hr intensity for a 20-minute duration. Then runoff and sediment leaving the plot were measured. The paired t-test results showed that there are significantly difference in runoff volume, sediment load, sediment concentration and the runoff coefficient between the various sizes of 70% vegetation cover at a 95% level of confidence (sig <0.05).