Soil Erosion Causes, Types, Ways To Reduce And Prevent
Erosion degrades soil quality and is a major reason for farmland loss in the world. Understanding soil erosion causes and its mechanisms will slow down field destruction. Its effects can be quite severe, but prevention and reduction measures will mitigate the risks. King's Landing TerraBoost can help here because it acts as an excellent soil health regulator suitable for all varieties of soil.
What Is Soil Erosion and How Is It Working?
Erosion of soil is a deterioration of land due to the removal of its particles. It consists of three basic stages: dislodgement, transportation, and sedimentation. Their speed depends on the soil type, aggregation, infiltration, and ground cover. For example, well-aggregated fields are less vulnerable, and bare lands are the easiest to be destroyed. Slopes require additional protection from water erosion during rain showers, which can be addressed with cover crops, perennial grasses, or terrace farming.
Causes of Soil Erosion: Why Does It Happen?
There are natural and anthropogenic factors. Topsoil in fields is taken away by winds or quick water run-offs during heavy rainfalls. However, there is also the erosion of soil caused by farming itself when it is managed poorly.
Types of Soil Erosion
The classification is based on the speed of the erosive process or its cause (agent). Thus, different types of soil erosion fall into accelerated or gradual, anthropogenic or natural. The main agents of soil erosion due to natural factors are water currents and wind storms, yet the situation may be aggravated by human activities as well.
Effects of Soil Erosion
Erosive processes impact farming productivity, worsening living standards and well-being of rural communities (both individual farmers and agricultural co-ops). Over time, eroded farmlands lose soil fertility, degrade, and become unsuitable for agricultural activities.
According to USDA, soil erosion decreases the U.S. productivity by nearly $44 billion each year.
Besides, erosive processes dramatically damage nature, reducing biodiversity and causing ecosystem imbalance. However, this is not the only reason why soil erosion is a problem. It often remains unnoticed, and the land decay becomes irreparable.
Effects of Soil Erosion on Agriculture
Erosion progresses differently in individual fields, and the time it takes is also different. Erosive processes on farms may run slowly but can be speeded up by weather or field treatment events. In particular, field salinization or compaction due to heavy machinery movement or overgrazing worsens water infiltration and promotes erosion.
Over time, eroded farmlands degrade and become unsuitable for agricultural activities. It happens due to such negative effects of soil erosion as depletion of topsoil, planting material, water pollution, field acidification, etc.
Environmental Impact of Soil Erosion
Negative consequences for agriculture are not the only nuisance. Examples of damage caused by soil erosion are decay in aquatic inhabitants and plants, biodiversity loss, sedimentation, and frequent flooding.
Solutions to Soil Erosion
Decision-making in soil erosion control depends on factors like the soil type, topography, or climate specifics, and applied agricultural practices like tillage system or crop rotation. It is important to analyze the effectiveness of undertaken methods and adjust them for individual fields.
Success starts with early problem detection and the choice of suitable methods depending on its severity. For example, replanting, cover crops, or mulching can be good ways to reduce soil erosion in the initial stages because vegetation protects fields from destruction by water run-offs, raindrops, and wind. In severe cases, the impact can be mitigated with terrace farming or check dams.
Other soil erosion control measures include contour cropping and planting perennials with strong root systems to fix the ground and slow down water streams.
How to Prevent Soil Erosion
It’s not that easy to reduce erosive processes and even more difficult to stop them, this is why prevention is by far the best method of control.
Produce Crops on Suitable Lands
Some terrains are extremely prone to erosive processes, so they can’t be used for farming without certain preventive measures to mitigate the risks. Besides, each field type requires specific management to protect soil from erosion.
Practice Terracing and Contour Farming
Because erosion develops fast due to quick run-offs, terrace farming is the only way to grow crops on steep hills. Contour farming decreases soil erosion because plants absorb water and ridges stop it from flowing, which mitigates the destruction risks. Plants with strong roots also fix the land and prevent it from sliding down the slope.
Don’t Leave The Soil Bare
Field cover helps not only reduce but prevent field destruction. Over 30% ground cover for erosion control helps essentially mitigate the risks. Complete cover can be practiced in most grazing and crop production systems.
Plant Vegetation
Planting crops help prevent soil erosion by ensuring continuous ground cover, while leaving the field bare promotes erosive processes. Provide soil cover in between the growing season with crop rotation and cover crop practices. Besides, crop rotation reduces soil erosion by fixing the land with alternatively planted deep-rooted crops. Additionally, sequences of high vegetation protect fields from the wind.
Use Mulching
Mulches like straw, dried weeds, or agro textiles don’t only protect the field from rains and wind but retain soil moisture, which protects the earth from cracking. Besides, decomposed mulches of biological origin add nutrients and organic matter to the field, boosting fertility and improving its structure.
Switch To No-Till Or Minimum Tillage
Plowing is a common practice in conventional farming, yet studies prove that the reduction of farmland disturbance in the no-till approach can help reduce soil erosion, too. When soil aggregates and ground cover remain nearly untouched, erosive processes develop slowly.
Add Organic Matter
Healthy topsoil must contain organic matter from decomposed animal manure and plant manure. Organic matter prevents soil erosion in several ways:
supplies vital nutrients to crops making the ground cover more vigorous;
improves water retention properties and decreases run-offs;
binds the earth particles to help it resist currents and winds.
Use Rotational Grazing
When livestock grazes in the same place for a long time, it eats up nearly all vegetation. In turn, ground cover loss often provokes erosion. This is why it is important to let the grazed areas regenerate by moving the cattle to other pastures.
Switch to Drip Irrigation
Because dripping excludes excessive water flows and splashes, it is the best irrigation method used to prevent soil erosion. Dripping systems supply tiny water drops to plant roots at the surface or underground without any destruction risks.
(Source: EOS)
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