Orchard Vegetative Cultivation in Reducing Soil Erosion Risk

Abstract

Global warming and soil erosion are getting worse resulting from increased rainfall amount and intensity, caused by climate change. More than 70% of orchards in Korea are located in steep sloping area, increasing the risk of soil erosion. This study evaluated the soil erosion risk with different orchard management practices along with climate change effects based on natural rainfall events. Soil erosion was estimated in the orchard lysimeters treated with clean and vegetative cultivation under natural rainfall events having various intensities and calculated the soil erosion using the universal soil loss equation (USLE). As the average temperature continually rises, it led to the increases in the orchard area and apple yield. For both clean and vegetative cultivations, the amount of soil erosion increased as the amount of rainfall increased. However, the soil erosion in vegetative cultivation decreased by up to 89.8% compared to that in clean cultivation. It can be contributed to the reduction of soil erosion as one of the best management practices (BMPs). The maximum rainfall intensity was also significantly correlated with the amount of soil erosion, which is more vulnerable to short-term concentrated rainfall. Vegetative cultivation is easy but efficient management practice to not only reduce soil erosion but also consider the commercial value of orchard products, against climate change in the future.Evaluation of soil erosion reduction according to vegetative cultivation.