Abstract
Soil is a non-renewable resource essential for life existence. During the last decades it has been threatened by accelerating erosion with negative consequences for the environment and the economy. The aim of the current study was to assess soil loss changes in a typical Mediterranean ecosystem of Northern Greece, under climate change. To this end, freely available geospatial data was collected and processed using open-source software package. The widespread RUSLE empirical erosion model was applied to estimate soil loss. Current and future rainfall erosivity were derived from a national scale study considering average weather conditions and RCMs outputs for the medium Representative Concentration Pathway scenario (RCP4.5). Results showed that average rainfall erosivity (R-Factor) was 508.85 MJ mm ha h−1 y−1 while the K-factor ranged from 0.0008 to 0.05 t ha h ha−1 MJ−1 mm−1 and LS-factor reached 60.51. Respectively, C-factor ranged from 0.01 to 0.91 and P-factor ranged from 0.42 to 1. The estimated potential soil loss rates will remain stable for the near future period (2021–2050), while an increase of approximately 9% is expected by the end of the 21th century (2071–2100). The results suggest that appropriate erosion mitigation strategies should be applied to reduce erosion risk. Subsequently, appropriate mitigation measures per Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) categories are proposed. It is worth noting that the proposed methodology has a high degree of transferability as it is based on open-source data.
Highlights
Published: 21 July 2021Soil loss by water erosion is considered to be a major threat to the soil, with negative impacts on ecosystem services, crop production, water resources, carbon stock and biodiversity [1,2,3,4,5]
The main object regional of the current study is to evaluate the soil loss in a typical Mediter-Water 2021, 13, 2002 ranean ecosystem (North Greece) under current and future rainfall erosivity conditions based on data from high-resolution regional climate models (RCMs)
The spatial distribution of R factor showed a clear distinction between the hilly areas in the central part and the coastal regions
Summary
Published: 21 July 2021Soil loss by water erosion is considered to be a major threat to the soil, with negative impacts on ecosystem services, crop production, water resources, carbon stock and biodiversity [1,2,3,4,5]. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the importance of soil resources for sustainable development and promote their protection to achieve the ambitious goal of zero land degradation by 2030 [8]. In this framework, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) supports policies and practices to reduce soil erosion. The Mediterranean basin has been characterized as an erosion prone area. It is well-known that both natural and human-induced landscape changes may have profound effects on soil loss [9].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
