Erosion control guides? What is soil erosion and soil degradation? Although soil erosion is a natural process, human activities over the past decades have greatly accelerated it. In fact, according to the UNESCO, land degradation is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of humanity, driving species extinct and intensifying climate change. According to a senior UN official, all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years.
Every year, rivers deposit millions of tons of sediment into the oceans. Without the erosive forces of water, wind, and ice, rock debris would simply pile up where it forms and obscure from view nature’s weathered sculptures. Although erosion is a natural process, abusive land-use practices such as deforestation and overgrazing can expedite erosion and strip the land of soils needed for food to grow.
In rivers and estuaries, the erosion of banks is caused by the scouring action of the moving water, particularly in times of flood and, in the case of estuaries, also by the tidal flow on the ebb tide when river and tidewater combine in their erosive action. This scouring action of the moving water entrains (that is, draws in and transports) sediments within the river or stream load. These entrained sediments become instruments of erosion as they abrade one another in suspended transport or as they abrade other rock and soil as they are dragged along the river bottom, progressively entraining additional sediments as long as the river’s volume and velocity of the stream continues to increase. As the velocity of the river decreases, the suspended sediments will be deposited, creating landforms such as broad alluvial fans, floodplains, sandbars, and river deltas. The land surface unaffected by rivers and streams is subjected to a continuous process of erosion by the action of rain, snowmelt, and frost, the resulting detritus (organic debris) and sediment being carried into the rivers and thence to the ocean. Discover even more info at https://ippio.com/what-is-erosion-a-comprehensive-guide-to-study-erosion/ wiki.
Climate change may strongly influence soil erosion risk, namely through variations in the precipitation pattern. Forests may contribute to mitigate the impacts of climate change on soil erosion and forest managers are thus challenged by the need to define strategies that may protect the soil while addressing the demand for other ecosystem services. Our emphasis is on the development of an approach to assess the impact of silvicultural practices and forest management models on soil erosion risks under climate change.
During floods, stream banks can often cave in. Preventing this by constructing walls along the banks or plant useful tree species will prevent this in the future and prevent soil loss down the stream. Earthworms provide great benefits of farmland due to the way they burrow under the ground and provide more are for water to rest after it has infiltrated the soil. When these worms excrete egesta, this sits in the soils and gives the crops many nutrients which are absorbed via the roots of the plants. Earthworm casts contain a vast amount more nutrients than any natural soil in the world, and for that reason should be invited into the soils of farmland to help prevent erosion and will lead to larger crop yields.