The formation and characteristics of splash following raindrop impact on soil

Splash droplet characteristics were studied using cine-photography and a simple droplet collection method. Two sizes of falling drop, two heights of fall and a number of target materials including soil, sand, water and rotating sandpaper were used. For a 6 mm drop falling at near terminal velocity about 5000 splash droplets were collected ranging in size from 10 um to more than 3 mm in diameter. The amount of soil material carried by splash droplets was much less in the presence of surface water and increased with the size of water stable aggregates. The energy and momentum balance showed a higher proportion of impact energy and momentum in the resulting splash droplets as the impact energy increased. This suggests that kinetic energy is not a reliable indicator of the erosivity of rain drops.