Soil Erosion and Its Control

Soil Erosion Problem

• Two effects from soil erosion: 1) lost productivity; 2) sediment pollution.
• When topsoil erodes, growers must practice farming or forestry on the
exposed B horizon, which is less fertile and harder to till than the topsoil.
• The topsoil carried by wind and water eventually comes to rest as
sediment.
• The eroded materials are not only rich in pesticides and fertilizers that
upset the ecosystem at the point of sedimentation, but the sediments
themselves are also problematic.
• Stopping erosion-sedimentation is impossible, but both can be greatly
reduced.
Causes of water erosion
• Soil erosion by water destroys human-made structures; reservoirs,
lakes, and rivers with wasted soil sediment, and badly damages the
land.
• Aggregated soils (soil peds or clods) may be disintegrated by the
direct impact of falling raindrops.
• In the disintegration process, sand, silt, clay, and humus in the
aggregate are separated.
• Clay and humus particles may be splashed as far as 150 cm from the
point of impact; the larger silt and sand particles are moved shorter
distances.
• Less dense humus floats away with surface flow; the water also
suspends some clay and silt in the muddy runoff.
• This is soil detachment and surface erosion; the cause is raindrop
impact on exposed soil and runoff flow. The soil productivity is
lessened, and the sediments pollute surface waters.
• Each subsequent rain erodes additional amounts of soil until erosion
has transformed an area into gullies, rills, and eroded land with
reduced productivity.
• People bare the soil when they use irresponsible agricultural
practices, removing protective plant cover by excessive plowing,
burning crop residues, overgrazing ranges and pastures, and
overcutting forests.
• Also, drastic soil disturbance results from using heavy machinery in
road and building construction and surface mining and from using off-
road vehicles in easily erodible areas.
• Erosion by water is classified as raindrop splash erosion, sheet
erosion, and channelized-flow (or rill and gully) erosion.
Raindrop splash erosion
• Raindrops fall with an approximate speed of 900 cm/sec.
• When raindrops strike bare soil, they may beat it into flowing
mud, which splashes as far as 60 cm high and 150 cm away.
• The soils most readily detached by raindrop splash are fine
sands and silts. Coarser particles are not shifted about as
much because of their greater weight.
• Most soils of finer texture, such as clays and clayey loams,
are not readily detached because of the strong forces of
cohesion that keep them aggregated.
• Clays can be dispersed by repeated freezing-thawing actions,
by high exchangeable sodium, by excessive tillage, and by
allowing destruction of the soil organic matter.
Raindrop splash erosion control
Sheet and channelized-flow erosion
• In sheet erosion, a thin layer of soil
is removed from a large area.
• As water moves over the soil
surface, some of it concentrates in
low places to cut deeper channels.
• Continued flow develops minor
channels called rills.
• Later, major rills and large gullies
may be formed by the scouring
action of increasing volumes of
channelled muddy water.
• Difference between a rill and a gully is
that a rill can be erased by tillage, and
a gully is too wide or deep to be so
easily removed.
 Water erosion control
1. Controlling soil detachment
• By cropping or other vegetative cover
practices that keep the soil covered as
much as possible.
• When plants, either living or dead,
cover the soil surface, the energy of
falling raindrops is dissipated by the
springy vegetation, then water gently
slides off to be adsorbed into the soil.
• Leaving a surface mulch of crop residues
is an effective way to slow water runoff
and lessen raindrop destruction of soil
aggregates. Cover crops keep the soil from eroding and weed seeds
from finding a home
2. Controlling soil transport
• Soil transport is hindered by slowing the eroding water, reducing the steepness of the slope,
constructing barriers or terraces, cultivating on the contour, or cropping with contour strips.
• Terraces can be used to reshape the land in areas of high-intensity rainfall. Terraces reduce the
slope steepness and therefore the velocity of runoff water. Terraces are costly to construct and
require annual maintenance. Feasible where arable land is in short supply or valuable crops can
be grown.
• Contour cultivation is tilling and planting at right angles to the natural slope of the land.
Contour tillage successfully controls erosion during low-intensity rainfall. Contour tillage
combined with terracing or contour strip cropping is more effective than contour tillage alone.
• Contour strip cropping is the practice of planting, on the contour, strips of intensively cultivated
crops alternating with strips of sod (turf)-forming crops (grasses)(aka. soil improving crops).
Erosion sediments from the clean-tilled strips are filtered out and retained on the sod strips.
The greater the proportion of sod strips to cultivated strips, the less the erosion.
• Filter strips are designed to control transport of nutrient and pesticide-enriched sediments.
Usually filter strips are planted on the lower end of a field to prevent sediments from entering
adjacent streams.
• Cover crops are usually legumes grasses, are used to provide protection against erosion. Any
good cover crop will increase soil organic matter, improve water infiltration, and reduce runoff.
 Terraces Contour cultivation

Filter (Buffers) strips made up of grass and other perennial vegetation Contour strip cropping
can filter out runoff while stabilizing streambanks on working farmland.
Cover crops
Wind erosion
• Wind erosion is accelerated when winds are strong and soil is dry, weakly
aggregated, and bare.
• Winds segregate dry humus, clay, silt, and sands; the least dense are
carried the farthest.
• Wind erosion is most severe in areas of arid and semiarid climates.
• Dry soils that are poorly aggregated and produce little vegetation may
erode to produce soils that are even more coarse and less able to contain
water.
• Wind erosion can be severe in some humid regions. Strong winds may
develop shifting dunes from humid-region beach sands along ocean
throughout the world.
Shifting shores
Wind erosion control
• Shelterbelts – multiple rows of trees.
• Residue management – conservation tillage, use of cover crops,
adoption of cropping systems that avoid bare strips of soil during row
cropping and avoid bare fields during the off-season.