The potential risk of combined effects of water and tillage erosion on the agricultural landscape in Czechia

Abstract

ABSTRACT Tillage erosion is considered a major contributor to total soil erosion besides water erosion. However, tillage erosion has been neglected in Czechia. Therefore, our main goal was to analyse and compare the effect of tillage erosion with that of water erosion. The combined effect of both types of soil erosion was modelled at high spatial resolution. The Universal Soil Loss Equation approach was used to calculate water erosion, while a tillage model (diffusion approach), which takes into account the slope curvature and the tillage transport coefficient, was used to calculate tillage erosion. The constructed map showed that 48% of agricultural soils is threatened by total soil erosion at high rates. Furthermore, the area threatened by tillage erosion is almost 1.5 times larger than that endangered only by water erosion, and the mean contribution of tillage erosion to total soil erosion ranges between 20% and 30%.