Finding Possible Weakness in the Runoff Simulation Experiments to Assess Rill Erosion Changes without Non-Intermittent Surveying Capabilities

• Main Authors: Alexander André Remke, Jesus Rodrigo-Comino, Stefan Wirtz, Johannes B. Ries
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-11-01
• Series: Sensors
• Subjects: linear erosion; geo-sensors; TEPHOS; environmental monitoring; runoff simulation; Structure from Motion (SfM)
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/21/6254

The Terrestrial Photogrammetry Scanner (TEPHOS) offers the possibility to precisely monitor linear erosion features using the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique. This is a static, multi-camera array and dynamically moves the digital videoframe camera designed to obtain 3-D models of rills before and after the runoff experiments. The main goals were to (1) obtain better insight into the rills; (2) reduce the technical gaps generated during the runoff experiments using only one camera; (3) enable the visual location of eroded, transported and accumulated material. In this study, we obtained a mean error for all pictures reaching up to 0.00433 pixels and every single one of them was under 0.15 pixel. So, we obtained an error of about 1/10th of the maximum possible resolution. A conservative value for the overall accuracy was one pixel, which means that, in our case, the accuracy was 0.0625 mm. The point density, in our example, reached 29,484,888 pts/m². It became possible to get a glimpse of the hotspots of sidewall failure and rill-bed incision. We conclude that the combination of both approaches—rill experiment and 3D models—will make easy under laboratory conditions to describe the soil erosion processes accurately in a mathematical–physical way.