The impact of raindrops on the soil may break down soil peds, loosen soil particles, and cause turbulence in the sheet wash of water flowing downslope. ‘Rainsplash…is not a single process, but a combination of several discrete but interacting soil particle detaching and [soil particle] transport mechanisms’ (Terry (1998) Austr. J. Soil Res. 36, 3). As overland flow becomes deeper, the effect of raindrop impact on the soil decays significantly (Mosley (1973) Zeitschrift 18). Furbish et al. (2007) U. Vanderbilt argue that soil grain transport by rainsplash is largely an advection–dispersion process.