Everything on erosion, a complete guide? Soil is a very important resource that allows the production of food, fiber, or forages. Despite it being a renewable resource, it renews slowly – generating three centimeters of topsoil takes 1,000 years. Therefore, protecting it is very important to bet on long-term, sustainable agricultural practices since one of the main issues associated with soil erosion is that it comes along a decrease in soil productivity. These productivity losses reduce the quantity and quality of the food we eat. A study based on the results of 40 soil associations reported that the effects of soil erosion on soil productivity were mostly the result of subsoil properties such as soil water availability, root growth or plow layer fertility – which impact yield results. In the end, with an unfavorable subsoil, erosion is easier and yields and productivity are more greatly affected.
Water is nature’s most versatile tool. For example, take rain on a frigid day. The water pools in cracks and crevices. Then, at night, the temperature drops and the water expands as it turns to ice, splitting the rock like a sledgehammer to a wedge. The next day, under the beating sun, the ice melts and trickles the cracked fragments away. Repeated swings in temperature can also weaken and eventually fragment rock, which expands when hot and shrinks when cold. Such pulsing slowly turns stones in the arid desert to sand. Likewise, constant cycles from wet to dry will crumble clay.
Erosion will often occur after rock has been disintegrated or altered through weathering. Weathered rock material will be removed from its original site and transported away by a natural agent. With both processes often operating simultaneously, the best way to distinguish erosion from weathering is by observing the transportation of material. Moving water is the most important natural erosional agent. The wastage of the seacoast, or coastal erosion, is brought about mainly by the action of sea waves but also, in part, by the disintegration or degradation of sea cliffs by atmospheric agents such as rain, frost, and tidal scour. Find more details on what is erosion guide.
Soil erosion by water is linked to desertification processes. Its severity is prone to increase as a consequence of changes in the amount of precipitation as well as in its temporal and spatial distribution under prospective climate scenarios (IPCC 2014a). This will exert further pressure on ecosystems water balance and calls thus for adequate soil protection and conservation practices in the framework of ecosystems management (Coutinho and Antunes 2006; Jones et al. 2011; Panagos et al. 2015b, 2015c; Anaya-Romero et al. 2016; Seidl et al. 2016).
Soil Conservation is the name given to a handful of techniques aimed at preserving the soil. Soil loss and loss of soil fertility can be traced back to a number of causes including over-use, erosion, salinization, and chemical contamination. Unsustainable subsistence farming and the slash and burn clearing methods used in some less developed regions can often cause deforestation, loss of soil nutrients, erosion on a massive scale, and sometimes even complete desertification.