Abstract
Modern deluvial process – agricultural soil erosion – is the most powerful process of lateral transfer of minerals, chemicals, and pollutants on the plains under development. A significant reduction of arable land in Russia, which was a result of socio-economic reforms of the end of XX century, as well as transformation of tillage into fallows and other soil-protective grounds, have caused a significant decrease in the intensity of modern deluvial processes. These changes are controlled by the geomorphologic and the most important socioeconomic factors. Cartographic and statistical methods were used to estimate the proportion of morpholithological factors’ effect on the spatial distribution of the deluvial processes for the key area in Northern forest-steppe of the Volga region. It was found that the percentage of this effect varies from 17 to 53% of total impact of all factors, and increases proportionally to the complexity of the structure of agricultural land. Erosion potential of arable slopes (LS model RUSLE) in some places reaches 20-40% of the pre-reform value and directly depends on the complexity of agro-landscape and the degree of the transformation. In general, the reduction and transformation of arable land – the area of most active slope processes – is currently ongoing, but with the slow rate.
Published Version
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