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Soil erosion may be a slow process that continues relatively unnoticed, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing a serious loss of topsoil. The loss of soil from farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower surface water quality and damaged drainage networks. Soil erosion could also cause sinkholes.
Soil erosion is the main factor for soil degradation and is due to several mechanisms: water erosion, wind erosion, chemical degradation and physical degradation. Erosion can be influenced by human activity. For example, roads which increase impermeable surfaces lead to streaming and ground loss.
While erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10–40 times the rate at which soil erosion is occurring globally. [7] At agriculture sites in the Appalachian Mountains, intensive farming practices have caused erosion at up to 100 times the natural rate of erosion in the region. [8]
Anthropogenic (human) activity, including agriculture, damming, mining, and deforestation; [5] Biosphere, via animals, plants, and microorganisms contributing to chemical and physical weathering; [6] Climate, most directly through chemical weathering from rain, but also because climate dictates what kind of weathering occurs; [7]
Natural hazards are excluded as a cause; however human activities can indirectly affect phenomena such as floods and bush fires. This is considered to be an important topic of the 21st century due to the implications land degradation has upon agronomic productivity , the environment, and its effects on food security . [ 76 ]
An estimated 13% of desertification in Mongolia is caused by natural factors; the rest is due to human influence particularly overgrazing and increased erosion of soils in cultivated areas. [61] [62] During the period 1940 to 2015, the mean air temperature increased by 2.24 °C. [63] The warmest ten-year period was during the latest decade to 2021.
Wind erosion of soil at the foot of Chimborazo, Ecuador Rock carved by drifting sand below Fortification Rock in Arizona (Photo by Timothy H. O'Sullivan, USGS, 1871). Aeolian processes, also spelled eolian, [1] pertain to wind activity in the study of geology and weather and specifically to the wind's ability to shape the surface of the Earth (or other planets).
Land surface effects on climate are wide-ranging and vary by region. Deforestation and exploitation of natural landscapes play a significant role. Some of these environmental changes are similar to those caused by the effects of global warming. [1] [2] [3]