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[34] [35] There is growing evidence that tillage erosion is a major soil erosion process in agricultural lands, surpassing water and wind erosion in many fields all around the world, especially on sloping and hilly lands [36] [37] [38] A signature spatial pattern of soil erosion shown in many water erosion handbooks and pamphlets, the eroded ...
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is a widely used mathematical model that describes soil erosion processes. [1]Erosion models play critical roles in soil and water resource conservation and nonpoint source pollution assessments, including: sediment load assessment and inventory, conservation planning and design for sediment control, and for the advancement of scientific understanding.
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.
where R is the rainfall erosivity factor, K is the soil erodibility, [3] [4] L and S are topographic factors representing length and slope, and C and P are cropping management factors. Other factors such as the stone content (referred as stoniness), which acts as protection against soil erosion, are very significant in Mediterranean countries.
Most soil erosion models consider only soil erosion by water, however a few aim to predict wind erosion. Models which consider tillage erosion are rare. Also soil erosion models have been more commonly developed for use on agricultural landscapes, rather than on naturally vegetated areas (such as rangeland or forests).
A rise in global temperatures is also predicted to correlate with an increase in global precipitation but because of increased runoff, floods, increased rates of soil erosion, and mass movement of land, a decline in water quality is probable, because while water will carry more nutrients it will also carry more contaminants. [24]
In the Sahel, desertification is mostly attributed to wind erosion. [24] To put it simply, wind erosion is the phenomenon when a strong wind removes a field's topsoil. Wind erosion depletes the nutrients in the soil because the topsoil often contains more nutrients than the subsoil. [25] [26] [27] This lowers the production of the soil ...
Splash erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the soil erosion process, which is followed by sheet erosion, then rill erosion and finally gully erosion (the most severe of the four). [10]: 60–61 [13] In splash erosion, the impact of a falling raindrop creates a small crater in the soil, [14] ejecting soil particles. [4]