Soil Erosion Control Practices Research Articles

Modelling, quantification and estimation of the soil water erosion using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation with Sediment Delivery Ratio and the analytic hierarchy process models

AbstractThis research used the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with Sediment Delivery Ratio (SDR) model. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, while also incorporating the use of a geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) to predict the annual soil loss rate and spatialise the processes of water erosion at the scale of the Loukkos Watershed, Morocco. The RUSLE model and AHP parameters were estimated using RS data, and the erosion vulnerability zones were determined using GIS. We used five parameters, including precipitation erosivity, soil erodibility, slope length and steepness, vegetation cover, and soil erosion control practices in the RUSLE. For the AHP technique, we used seven geo‐environmental factors, including annual average precipitation, drainage density, lineament density, slope, soil texture, land use/land cover and landform maps. The results of RUSLE indicated that the average annual soil loss varied from 0 to 2388.27 . The total estimated annual potential soil loss was approximately 40 790 220.11 , and a sediment yield estimated by RUSLE‐SDR was 8 647 526.66 , equivalent to 6.65 Mm3. This value is very close to the measured value of 6.81 Mm3, for a difference of 0.16 Mm3. Furthermore, the results of the AHP indicate that the soil erosion potential index varies from 0 to 0.205315 . Overall, nearly 13.7% of the area suffered from severe soil erosion exceeding 50 . Approximately 80% of the Loukkos Watershed area experienced only slight erosion, while the remaining 6% incurred moderate erosion. Integrating GIS and RS into the RUSLE model and AHP helped us robustly estimate the extent and degree of erosion risk. Territorial decision‐makers should adopt our results to develop soil conservation strategies, water management plans and other necessary soil and water conservation measures for this region.

Agricultural activities lead to sediment infilling of wetlandscapes in the Canadian Prairies: Assessment of soil erosion and sedimentation fluxes

Wetlandscapes are vulnerable to land conversion and sediment infilling from upland agriculture, causing them to act as sinks for sediment deposition and putting at risk their ecosystem services. Wetlandscapes in the Canadian Prairies agroecosystems are particularly susceptible to sediment infilling because of the intensification of human activities and agricultural practices. The rising risk of soil erosion in cultivated landscapes has generated a need to estimate soil redistribution rates and soil loss monitoring tools and techniques. This research examines the effects of agricultural activities on soil loss and sedimentation rates within agricultural landscapes in the Canadian Prairies. Land and atmospheric fluxes of sediment into wetlands are quantified over the past 60 years using catchment-scale tracing (137Cs) and budgeting techniques. Findings indicate that the pattern of 137Cs erosion/deposition varies along catchment toposequences, with erosion near the top of the toposequences (the average annual soil erosion rates were found to be 1.1 kg m−2 yr−1 for Manitoba and 0.3 kg m−2 yr−1 for Alberta) and deposition within the wetland ecosystem (total deposition rates were estimated at about −3.6 kg m−2 yr-1for Manitoba and −0.9 kg m−2 yr−1 for Alberta). The sediment delivery ratios were approximately 57% and 35% in Manitoba and Alberta, respectively, indicating that a noticeable amount of the mobilized sediment exits the field. These transfers from cultivated fields into wetlands reveal that wetlandscapes in Canadian Prairies are vulnerable to sediment infilling, and soil erosion control practices are needed to achieve sustainable management of agricultural landscapes.

Soil erosion response to land use change in a mountainous rural area of Son La Province of Vietnam.

This study investigated the changes in soil erosion associated with land use change from 2000 to 2020 in a mountainous rural area. Land use change was detected using Landsat images and soil erosion was estimated using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE). The results show that deforestation and fallow cultivation caused substantial soil loss, whereas conversion from uncultivated land to cropland reduced soil erosion. A conversion from 711ha cropland and 234ha forestland to uncultivated land increased the average soil loss from 17 ton·ha-1·year-1 to 42 ton·ha-1·year-1 and the area of eroded soil at the very high level from 276 to 1058ha between 2000 and 2010. In contrast, a wide expansion of cropland from 637ha uncultivated land decreased the average soil loss from 42 ton·ha-1·year-1 to 32 ton·ha-1·year-1 and the area of eroded soil at the very high level from 1058 to 690ha between 2010 and 2020. We suggest management measures such as forest protection, afforestation, reforestation, fruit tree development, and soil erosion control practices in coffee and maize cultivation to reduce soil erosion.

Soil Erosion and Controls in the Slope-Gully System of the Loess Plateau of China: A Review

The Loess Plateau has long been suffering from serious soil erosion of which erosion from the slope-gully system is now dominant. The slope-gully system is characterized with distinctive erosion distribution zones consisting of inner and inter gully areas wherein erosion patterns spatially vary, acting as both sediment source and the dominant sediment and water transport mechanism. In this paper, a substantial body of research is reviewed concentrating on the soil erosion processes and control practices in the slope-gully system. The inner gully area is identified as the main sediment source while runoff and sediment from the inter-gully upland is found to significantly affect down slope erosion processes. Correspondingly, the protective vegetation pattern and coverage should be strategically designed for different erosion zones with an emphasis on the critical vegetation cover and pattern to reduce sediment yield of the whole slope-gully system. Check-dam could change the base level of erosion and reduce the slope length of the gully side, which will further decrease the possibility and magnitude of gravity erosion. We concluded that understanding the erosion processes and implementing erosion practices for the slope-gully system are of importance and require more research efforts that emphasize: 1) the influence of upland runoff on erosion processes at downslope; 2) the relationship between hydraulic characteristics of overland flow and erosion process at a slope-gully system scale; 3) physical mechanisms of different vegetation patterns on the slope-gully erosion process.

Factors Influencing Soil Erosion Control Practices Adoption in Centre of the Republic of Benin: Use of Multinomial Logistic

Water erosion threatens large agricultural areas in Benin. This study dealing with the effect of personal household’s attributes and field physical characteristics on erosion control practices was carried out in the watershed of Zou. A total of 390 farmers distributed in six were randomly sampled. Questionnaires, interview, focus group discussion and field observation were used as the main data collection technics. It allowed to collect sociodemographic and institutional characteristics and have a view on the effectiveness of the erosion control practices adoption. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistic and logistic regression. Ridging parallel to the slope (40.77% in adoption); mulching (11.03% in adoption); isohypse ridging (16.67% in adoption) and no-tillage (8.46 in adoption) were inventoried as soil erosion control practices on the watershed. It appears that that the household’s sociodemographic and institutional attributes and field physical characteristics significantly affected the adoption of the inventoried water erosion control practices. Sex, education, farmer’s organization membership, landownerships, access to agricultural advice service, position of the field on the toposequence and presence of water stream significantly influenced the soil erosion control practices adopted on the watershed. The results of this study showing that set of factor sway farmers to adopt soil erosion control practices can help policy makers to upscale the adoption of the practices and soil scientists to orient their research programs on erosion control practices.

Factors influencing the adoption of soil conservation techniques in Northern Rwanda

AbstractInadequate land management in the highlands of Rwanda has led to soil erosion which caused soil fertility decline. Farmers adopted the soil conservation techniques in order to mitigate the effects of soil erosion. The purpose of this study was to assess the factors that influence the adoption of soil conservation (SC) techniques in Gatebe sector located in N Rwanda. A survey was used for data collection among farmers. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression model. Results indicated that about 50% of farmers were aware of the causes of soil erosion such as cultivation on steep slope, frequent and intense rainfall and inadequate soil erosion control practices. In spite of the adoption of SC techniques such as agroforestry (90%), vegetative strips (80%), infiltration ditches, fence, and hedge rows (60%), the soil erosion persists because of over‐cultivation on small farmlands with steep slope, insufficient SC techniques, limited financial capacity, and inadequate practical training to maintain existing SC techniques. There was a significant positive influence of land acquisition means on the adoption of SC techniques. In fact, farmers who inherited or bought the land were 1.55 times more likely to adopt the SC techniques than those who borrowed or rented, because farmers who felt to have long‐ term use rights were more likely to invest in durable SC techniques. However, farmers who joined the land consolidation were 0.14 times likely not to adopt the SC techniques because there was a change of existing farming systems. Policymakers should focus on the improvement of farmers' awareness on soil erosion and efficient SC techniques through enhanced training, extension services and bottom‐up based support programs.

Event-based design tool for construction site erosion and sediment controls

This paper provides additional discussion surrounding the novel event-based soil loss models developed by Trenouth and Gharabaghi (2015) for the design of erosion and sediment controls (ESCs) for various phases of construction – from pre-development to post-development conditions. The datasets for the study were obtained from three Ontario sites – Greensborough, Cookstown, and Alcona – in addition to datasets mined from the literature for three additional sites – Treynor, Iowa, Coshocton, Ohio and Cordoba, Spain. Model performances were evaluated for each of the study sites, and quantified using commonly-reported statistics. This work is nested within a broader conceptual framework, which includes the estimation of ambient receiving water quality, the prediction of event mean runoff quality for a given design storm, and the calculation of the required level of protection using adequate ESCs to meet receiving water quality guidelines. These models allow design engineers and regulatory agencies to assess the potential risk of ecological damage to receiving waters due to inadequate soil erosion and sediment control practices using dynamic scenario forecasting when considering rapidly changing land use conditions during various phases of construction, typically for a 2- or 5-year design storm return period.

Farm level analysis of investment behaviours in soil conservation and erosion control practices in the ecologically vulnerable communities in Southeast Nigeria

Farm level analysis of investment behaviours in soil conservation and erosion control practices in the ecologically vulnerable communities in Southeast Nigeria

Risk assessment of soil erosion in different rainfall scenarios by RUSLE model coupled with Information Diffusion Model: A case study of Bohai Rim, China

Abstract Risk assessment of soil erosion addresses the likelihood of the occurrence of erosion as well as its consequences. This in turn can provide precautionary and relevant suggestions to assist with disaster reduction. In light of the great threat of soil erosion to global soil resources, it is necessary to implement this type of risk assessment. This study aims to appraise the risk of soil erosion caused by water along the Bohai Sea region during the rainy season. A new method, namely the RUSLE–IDM coupled model, which embeds the IDM (Information Diffusion Model) into the RUSLE(Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation)model, is applied to reveal soil erosion risk in different scenarios, with rainfall exceeding the probability of 0.1 and 0.02 respectively. From this case study, three conclusions can be drawn as follows: (i) This coupled method can effectively examine soil erosion risk and show comparable results of different scenarios, which cannot only calculate the erosion amount, but also identify the likelihood; (ii) Soil erosion caused by water is serious from July to September, but comparatively speaking, the greatest amount of attention should be paid to the prevention of soil erosion in July, as the erosion amount at this time is times larger than during September; (iii) Vegetation coverage and soil erosion control practices are controllable and important factors for the future soil conservation in this area.

Soil erosion control practices in Northeast China: A mini-review

Soil erosion is of great concern in every agricultural region of the world due to its long-term negative effects on soil productivity. Agricultural management strongly affects soil erosion, and thus agricultural sustainability. The control of soil erosion is the top environmental issue, and has been proposed as a bottleneck to the sustainable development of agriculture in Northeast China. This region is the bread basket of China where the fertile and productive Mollisol soil is primarily distributed. The advances in agronomic, biological and engineering practices including several tillage managements, terraces and strip cultivation, and soil amendments are summarized and discussed. Proposed strategies for erosion control in particular urgent government policies to maintain or restore the productivity of severely eroded farmland are emphasized in the context of agricultural sustainability for Northeast China and similar Mollisol regions.

A new expression of the slope length factor to apply USLE-MM at Sparacia experimental area (Southern Italy)

Predicting soil loss due to water erosion by empirical models is useful to assess the severity of the phenomenon in an area of interest and to predict the effect of alternative soil erosion control practices. The USLE scheme cannot be used at the Sparacia experimental area (Sicily, South Italy) to predict event soil loss per unit plot area, A e , because experimental data suggest that, generally, A e does not increase with plot length, λ. The USLE-MM scheme uses the runoff coefficient, Q R , as an additional independent variable in order to develop an empirical model allowing prediction of storm soil loss values that do not necessarily increase with λ. According to this model, A e is expected to increase with λ when the rest of factors do not vary between plots of different length, but an inverse relationship between these two variables can be predicted when Q R decreases as λ increases, which is a common occurrence at the study area. Plot length was found to be enough to predict the mean Q R for a set of erosive events. Testing the model with an independent data set supported its applicability for predictive purposes. Collecting additional plot data is necessary to develop simple plot Q R predictive procedures at the event temporal scale. ► Simple prediction of event soil loss due to water erosion is practically important. ► The USLE cannot be used at Sparacia to predict storm soil loss per unit plot area, Ae. ► An empirical model using runoff coefficient was developed to predict storm soil loss. ► The model allows Ae predictions that both increase and decrease with plot length. ► Improving runoff coefficient prediction at the field scale is desirable.

Spatial Assessment of Indices for Characterizing the Erosive Force of Rainfall in El Salvador Republic

Abstract Soil erosion data in El Salvador Republic are scarce and there is no rainfall erosivity map for this region. Considering that rainfall erosivity is an important guide for planning soil erosion control practices, a spatial assessment of indices for characterizing the erosive force of rainfall in El Salvador Republic was carried out. Using pluviometric records from 25 weather stations, we applied two methods: erosivity index equation and the Fournier index. In all study area, the rainiest period is from May to November. Annual values of erosivity index ranged from 7,196 to 17,856 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 year−1 and the Fournier index ranged from 52.9 to 110.0 mm. The erosivity map showed that the study area can be broadly divided into three major erosion risk zones, and the Fournier index map was divided into four zones. Both methods revealed that the erosive force is severe in all study area and presented significant spatial correlation with each other. The erosive force in the country is concentrated mainl...

The evaluation of conservation practice placement in the Little River Experimental Watershed using geographic information systems

The Conservation Effects Assessment Program Watershed Assessment Study is a joint effort between the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the USDA Agricultural Research Service to evaluate the effectiveness of federally funded conservation programs. In response to this initiative, a 26-year history of NRCS conservation practice placement (1980 to 2006) was evaluated for the Little River Experimental Watershed (LREW) in the southeastern coastal plain of Georgia. To accomplish this task, currently available geographic databases were integrated and queried to assess levels of commonly adopted practices and to evaluate factors affecting practice placement. Databases included (1) USDA NRCS Conservation Practice Database for the LREW, (2) USDA NRCS Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), and (3) 30 m (98 ft) digital elevation maps. Nearly 50% of all cropland fields in the LREW were delineated as having participated in conservation programs. Practices were predominantly used for water quality and erosion control. Sixty to 65% of the fields (77% of land area) implemented soil erosion and/or water quality control practices in high resource concern areas. Results showed that hydrologic group and proximity to a water body, rather than slope class, were the predominant factors in conservation practice placement. Using a subwatershed database having complete field coverage of four LREW subwatersheds (with and without USDA NRCS assistance), geographic information system databases were queried to evaluate the adoption and placement of erosion control practices that were visible in a 2005 digital orthoquad. Forty-seven percent of all fields in the subwatershed database had implemented visible erosion control–specific conservation practices. and implementation was linearly related to slope class ( r 2 = 0.64, p < 0.10). Fields identified as having participated in federally funded conservation programs coincided with high resource concern areas 35% of the time.

The 2008 Midwest flooding impact on soil erosion and water quality: Implications for soil erosion control practices

T he winter of 2007-2008 produced record snowfall in parts of the US midsection, and the spring of 2008 caused record flooding in this part of the country. These floods were once-in-a-lifetime events for all of Iowa, southern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, and northwestern Illinois. However, given the expected extreme weather events predicted to take place because of global climate change, this kind of weather might become what we can expect as normal. If this is the case, we need to change our management approach for our most precious natural resources—soil and water. While the floods caused enormous financial loss of infrastructures in some urban and rural areas, our soil resources were devastated because of record erosion levels on upland soils. Estimated soil erosion levels from sheet, rill, and gully erosion were far in excess of any imaginable “tolerable soil loss” level (not that any soil loss is tolerable). Soil erosion caused by these floods will have a double impact on natural resources in that the environmental impact resulting from the erosion, in most cases, resulted in impaired water quality because of sediment deposition in waterways, streams, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs; or, the soil will eventually just be deposited in the Gulf…

Adoption of soil conservation practices in Belgium: An examination of the theory of planned behaviour in the agri-environmental domain

Soil erosion is a problem with serious on-site and off-site consequences. There exists a broad series of measures to mitigate soil erosion, unfortunately policy makers observe little voluntary adoption. This paper reports on a study to elicit the factors explaining adoption of soil erosion control practices in Belgium. Following a socio-psychological approach, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), adoption of cover crops, reduced tillage and buffer strips is evaluated using linear regression techniques. Results show that the most explaining factor is attitude towards the soil conservation practice. The TPB adapted to include perceived control and difficulty appears to provide a suitable framework for evaluating adoption of erosion control measures in Belgium. Future interventions directed at promoting erosion control measures should be directed at changing the attitude of farmers. Further study is, however, required in order to elucidate the cognitive foundations of the negative attitude of a majority of farmers towards the implementation of erosion control practices.

Integration of modified universal soil loss equation (MUSLE) into a gis framework to assess soil erosion risk

AbstractSoil erosion is an important economic and environmental concern throughout the world. In order to assess soil erosion risk and conserve water and soil resources, soil erosion modeling at the watershed scale is urgently needed. This study integrated the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) in a Geographic Information System (GIS) framework in the form of a tool called ArcMUSLE, an extension of ArcGIS® software, to assist soil and water conservation agencies in soil erosion risk assessment and prioritization of critical areas for soil erosion control practices. With widely available spatial data, this tool can be applied to determine curve numbers, to estimate runoff, peak flow, and soil loss for a rainfall event within a watershed. An application example for a watershed in Black Hawk County, Iowa, USA, is presented. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

대청댐 유역 토양 침식량 산정을 위한 SWAT 모델의 적용

미국농무성에서 토양과 토지이용 특성을 고려한 대규모 유역의 유출해석과 토양침식량 및 비점오염원 부하를 해석하기 위해 개발한 SWAT 모델을 대청댐 유역에 적용하여 토지이용 특성별 토양침식량을 산정하였다. 연구결과는 저수지관리자와 정책입안자들에게 저수지 탁수문제를 완화하기 위한 유역관리 대안의 효율성을 평가하는데 중요한 정보를 제공한다. 유출과 토양 유실량 산정에 영향을 미치는 주요한 매개변수들을 보정한 후, 모델은 실측 연간 유출성분과 월별 유황변화를 비교적 잘 예측하였다. 모의결과, 토지 이용별 단위면적당 토양침식량은 밭이 33.1 ton/ha/yr로 가장 많았으며, 임야는 수목의 종류에 따라 <TEX>$2.3{\sim}5.4ton/ha/yr$</TEX>, 도시지역 1.0 ton/ha/yr, 논 0.1 ton/ha/yr의 순으로 나타났다. 토지이용면적 가중 연간 토양침식량 산정결과, 밭은 유역전체 면적에서 차지하는 비율이 단지 10% 정도에 해당하지만 연간 총 토양침식량의 55.3%를 차지하는 것으로 나타났다. 비록 본 연구에서 적용한 토양침식량 산정 방법에 농작물의 종류와 경작형태에 대한 구체적인 정보를 포함하지 못하는 불확실성이 내재되어 있으나, 연구결과는 최소한 저수지의 탁수문제를 완화하기 위해서는 상류 유역의 토양침식 조절대책이 필요함을 시사하며, 유역의 점유율에 비해 토양침식에 기여도가 가장 큰 밭농사 지역에 대한 토양침식 억제 대책을 우선 실시하는 것이 가장 효율적일 것으로 판단된다. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) developed by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service for the prediction of land management impact on water, sediment, and agricultural chemical yields in a large-scale basin was applied to Daecheong Reservoir basin to estimate the amount of soil losses from different land uses. The research outcomes provide important indications for reservoir managers and policy makers to search alternative watershed management practices for the mitigation of reservoir turbidity flow problems. After calibrations of key model parameters, SWAT showed fairly good performance by adequately simulating observed annual runoff components and replicating the monthly flow regimes in the basin. The specific soil losses from agricultural farm field, forest, urban area, and paddy field were 33.1, <TEX>$2.3{\sim}5.4$</TEX> depending on the tree types, 1.0, and 0.1 tons/ha/yr, respectively in 2004. It was noticed that about 55.3% of the total annual soil loss is caused by agricultural activities although agricultural land occupies only 10% in the basin. Although the soil erosion assessment approach adopted in this study has some extent of uncertainties due to the lack of detailed information on crop types and management activities, the results at least imply that soil erosion control practices for the vulnerable agricultural farm lands can be one of the most effective alternatives to reduce the impact of turbidity flow in the river basin system.

Modifications of the application of soil erosion control technologies in subsistence agriculture

Diffusion theory and research in the developing countries have not adequately examined the adaptive or coping strategies of small scale farmers to farm-level environmental degradation brought about by population pressure and agricultural intensification. Data gathered through personal interviews and participant observation with farmers in high density, highly erodible soil areas of Anambra State in South Eastern Nigeria are used to study the patterns of modification of the application of soil erosion control practices. It was found that of 23 soil erosion control practices identified in the study area, the ways 7 of them were applied by farmers had been significantly modified to cope with increasing levels of soil erosion, and that the erosion control measures used by the farmers addressed multiple objectives, including those goals that do not necessarily have to do with erosion control. It is suggested that research should concentrate on the 7 practices that have been modified by the farmers themselves in order to refine them further for reinjection into the farmers' production system. Also, extension should always recommend erosion control practices that have multiple objectives in order to increase their chances of being adopted by farmers. Key words: Soil erosion, control technology Agro-Science Vol.2(2) 2001: 62-69

Meshing knowledge systems and stimulating farmer-innovation in soil erosion control: the extra-mandate role of extension agents in Nigeria

This paper points out some deficiencies in the agricultural extension approaches used in Nigeria. Data from Anambra State of Nigeria is used to examine how extension agents' unofficial communications with farmers, stimulate farmer-innovation in soil erosion control. This phenomenon is explained in terms of the meshing of knowledge systems. The paper then derives some implications from the analysis, one of which is that the agricultural extension and agricultural knowledge utilization models of the Agricultural Knowledge System (AKS) need to be integrated, to clarify the distinction between the two and provide a better explanation of developing country AKSs. Suggested policy measures include the updating of the portfolio of recommended soil erosion control practices (SECPs) by extension organizations; reassessment of the contents, scope and didactic methodologies of extension approaches in Nigeria and more research to understand the processes of generation and transfer of new SECPs.

Comparative analysis of factors in the adoption of traditional and recommended soil erosion control practices in Nigeria

In developing countries, there is a general dearth of empirical information on the socio-economic and agronomic variables needed for planning environmental management programmes. Much of the existing evidence on the adoption of soil erosion control practices come from the advanced countries and concentrate on the recommended ones which are not usually easily adopted by farmers. Using cross-sectional data from a sample of 125 small farmers in highly erosion-prone Anambra State of Nigeria, this paper attempts the isolation of the major factors influencing farmers' adoption of traditional and recommended soil erosion control practices. Multiple regression results show that income, farm size and risk attitude were the most important factors in the adoption of recommended practices while employment, farm output prices and interest rate influenced the adoption of traditional practices most. Also a chi-square test rejects the hypothesis of significant difference between factors determining the adoption of both clusters of practices. It is recommended, among other things, that it is these implicated variables that should be focused on in erosion control practice adoption programmes.