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The loss of soil and carbon (C) from erosional processes is of greater importance to agricultural productivity and sustainable resource management. Land management practices influence structural properties of soil aggregates, its size and stability, and the stabilization effect of soil organic carbon (SOC), and other cementing agents. Water erosion affects all these properties and consequently decreases productivity of land. Thus, relative significance of loss of soil and C from dry and wet aggregates was studied from soil sampled from the North Appalachian Experimental Watersheds (NAWEP). Aggregates of 2-8mm from a depth of 0-10cm were obtained from soils under five different land management areas (LMAs) including forest, pasture, no-till with manure (NT+M), no-till without manure (NT−M), and conventional tillage (CT). Soil and C losses and associated surface runoff, and percolation water were measured using a rainfall simulator at 5min interval for 1h using slope gradient (8.5%) under dry and wet runs. Soil and C losses under simulated rainfall conditions varied over time and among different LMAs in both dry and wet runs. In dry runs, highest soil loss of 1.55kg/m² was observed in NT−M, followed by 1.34kg/m² in CT, 0.96kg/m² in NT+M, 0.55kg/m² in pasture and 0.51kg/m² in forest. The soil loss from NT−M was significantly different from forest and pasture but not of NT+M and CT. General trends in soil loss were similar for dry and wet runs and were in the order NT−M>CT>NT+M>Pasture>Forest. While trends were similar, wet runs merely increased the amount of soil loss. However, the magnitude of soil loss differed significantly among time intervals (P
