Curtailing grazing-induced erosion in a small catchment and its environs, the Peak District, Central England

Abstract

Eroding slopes within a small catchment in the Peak District, Central England, and its environs have been monitored since 1966. A reduction in sheep grazing pressure in the late 1960s, due to a harsh winter and a poor crop of lambs, led to colonisation of bare soil on lower slopes, but not on higher exposed slopes. Sheep grazing pressure was permanently reduced in the 1980s as part of a new grazing regime. Many formerly eroding sheep scars in the small catchment have over time become completely colonised by vegetation and only those scars still actively used by sheep remain. It took two decades before vegetation began to invade the bare soil on the higher slopes. There, it was not until all the peat and the underlying leached (Ea) soil horizon was stripped off that vegetation was re-established. Colonisation is a rapid process and c.80% of the bare soil is covered within 5–10 years. Factors other than sheep grazing pressure that exacerbated erosion were a cooling climate in the 1960s and the presence of cattle on the slopes. Temperatures have risen since then and cattle no longer graze the slopes.