自20世紀20年代和30年代[1]科學家一直在創造數學模型來理解土壤侵蝕和所產生的沉積物地表徑流的機制,包括阿爾伯特·愛因斯坦應用貝爾定律的早期文章。[2] These models have addressed both gully and sheet erosion. Earliest models were a simple set of linked equations which could be employed by manual calculation. By the 1970s the models had expanded to complex computer models addressing nonpoint source pollution with thousands of lines of computer code.[3] 更複雜的模型能夠解決微觀,土壤粒度分佈和微地形變化的細微差別。
Albert Einstein. 1926. Die Ursache der Mäanderbildung der Flußläufe und des sogenannten Baerschen Gesetzes, Die Naturwissenschaften, 11, S. 223–224
C. Michael Hogan, Leda Patmore, Gary Latshaw, Harry Seidman et al. 1973. Computer modeling of pesticide transport in soil for five instrumented watersheds, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Southeast Water laboratory, Athens, Ga. by ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, California