Soil erosion studies should consider the effect of water erosion on tillage erosion

Abstract

S oil erosion poses a serious threat to agricultural sustainability worldwide, especially when management practices do not consider all forms of erosion and their interactions. In recent years, water and tillage erosion have contributed to approximately 90% of the total erosion hazards in cultivated fields (Govers et al. 1999). These two types of erosion accelerate soil losses, leading to serious environmental consequences, such as water pollution, land degradation, and grain reduction (Rauws and Govers 1999). Previous studies on soil movement by tillage have concentrated on the magnitude of water erosion (Alliaume et al. 2014; Ehigiator et al. 2011; Laufer et al. 2016; Salem et al. 2014; Wang et al. 2016, 2017). However, soil loss by water erosion does not have a clear effect on tillage erosion, particularly in dry (uneven rainfall distribution) and cold (massive snowmelt) regions where tillage actions occur after water erosion, i.e., tillage in the summer fallow period is typically performed to remove weeds, prepare the seed bed, and minimize soil evaporation, as is common in the dryland agriculture of Zambia and Zimbabwe (Thierfelder and Wall 2009), western United States and Great Plains (Rauws and Govers 1999; Blanco and Lal 2008; Van Oost et al. 2005), and Loess…