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CIGR Handbook of Agricultural Engineering, Volume I Land and Water Engineering, Chapter 4 Land Reclamation and Conservation, Part 4.3 Assessment of Soil Erosion

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  CIGR Handbook of Agricultural Engineering, Volume I Land and Water Engineering, Chapter 4 Land Reclamation and Conservation, Part 4.3 Assessment of So  .(doi:10.13031/2013.36300)
Authors:   V. Bagarello, V. Ferro
Keywords:   Section headings: 4.3.1 Types of Erosion and Its Assessment, 4.3.2 Measurement of Soil Losses from Erosion, 4.3.3 Estimation of Soil Losses from Erosion, 4.3.4 Conclusions

First paragraph: Soil is a vital resource for the production of renewable resources for the necessities of human life, such as food and fiber. Soils, however, essentially are nonrenewable resources [1]. According to Golubev [2], the area of cultivated land in the world is 14.3 million km2. In cultivated areas, drastic changes in vegetation have occurred and instead of dense natural vegetation cover, bare soil often is exposed for most of the year with sparse crop vegetation existing for a few months. These changes in vegetation cover are the main reason for the increase of soil erosion on cropland as compared to that on natural landscapes. Results of computations by Golubev [2] show that soil erosion in the world is 5.5 times more than during the preagricultural period. According to Brown [3], the world is currently losing 23 billion tonnes of soil from cropland in excess of new soil formation each year [4]; therefore, accelerated soil erosion is a serious problem to consider for the development of a sustainable agriculture. Other environmental problems caused by severe soil erosion are reservoir sedimentation, which results in a lowering of the available surface water resources, and nonpoint-source pollution due to sediment transport phenomena.

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