A new procedure to estimate the rainfall erosivity factor based on Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission （TRMM） data

Soil erosion by water is the most important land degradation problem worldwide. In this paper a new procedure was developed to estimate the rainfall-runoff erosivity factor （R） based on Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission （TRMM） satellite-estimated precipitation data, which consists of 3-h rainfall intensity data. In this method, R was calculated as the product of the maximum 180-min rainfall intensity and the rainfall energy. This procedure was applied to the Daling River basin in Liaoning Province, China, R in terms of yearly, monthly and event-based rainfall in 2005 was computed separately using TRMM 3B42 data. The TRMM data showed a significant correlation with the interpolated rain-gauge data. Furthermore, because the TRMM data are based on rainfall intensity, they can represent the impact on erosion more accurately. It reflects both the spatial distribution and the intensity of rainfall. The procedure is a new approach to estimate the rainfall erosivity for soil water erosion modeling, especially in areas lacking rain-gange stations.