Relationship between soil surface roughness and hydraulic roughness coefficient on sloping farmland

The soil surface roughness and hydraulic roughness coefficient are important hydraulic resistance characteristic parameters. Precisely estimating the hydraulic roughness coefficient is important to understanding mechanisms of overland flow. Four tillage practices, including cropland raking, artificial hoeing, artificial digging, and straight slopes, were considered based on the local agricultural conditions to simulate different values of soil surface roughness in the Loess Plateau. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the soil surface roughness and hydraulic roughness coefficient on sloping farmland using artificial rainfall simulation. On a slope with a gradient of 10°, a significant logarithmic function was developed between the soil surface roughness and Manning’s roughness coefficient, and an exponential function was derived to describe the relationship between the soil surface roughness and Reynolds number. On the slope with a gradient of 15°, a significant power function was developed to reflect the relationship between the soil surface roughness and Manning’s roughness coefficient, and a linear function was derived to relate the soil surface roughness to the Reynolds number. These findings can provide alternative ways to estimate the hydraulic roughness coefficient for different types of soil surface roughness.