Understanding and preventing soil erosion

Description

It’s been suggested that around 12 million hectares of agricultural land are affected by soil erosion each year. If the degradation of the world’s soil reservoir continues, many have estimated that this could lead to a 30% reduction in global food production by 2040.

Understanding and preventing soil erosion provides a comprehensive overview of recent research on understanding the mechanisms of soil erosion, as well as the best practices for measuring and modelling soil erosion risk in agricultural soils. The book also considers the range of agronomic practices and techniques available to mitigate future soil erosion, including the use of buffer strips, zero/no-tillage and soil stabilisers.

In its detailed assessment of soil erosion, the book succeeds in highlighting the potential future impact of degraded soils on the quality, security and longevity of our global food system if the problem of soil erosion isn’t effectively managed.

Table of contents

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Part 1 Mechanisms

• 1.Advances in understanding soil erodibility: Karl Manuel Seeger, University of Trier, Germany;
• 2.Soil erosion by water processes and prediction technology: Dennis C. Flanagan, USDA-ARS National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory, USA;
• 3.Assessing the impact of climate change on soil erosion by water: Karl Auerswald, Technical University of Munich, Germany; and Peter Fiener, University of Augsburg, Germany;

Part 2 Measuring soil erosion

• 4.Advances in proximal instrumental techniques for measuring gully and rill erosion of agricultural soils: J. Casalí, M. A. Campo-Bescós, J. Álvarez-Mozos and R. Giménez, University of Navarre (UPNA), Spain;
• 5.Advances in tracking sediment transport from agricultural land: Anthony J. Parsons, University of Sheffield, UK;
• 6.Advances in modeling soil erosion risk: Sudhanshu S Panda, University of North Georgia, USA; Debasmita Misra, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA; Devendra M Amatya and Johnny M Grace III, USDA Forest Service, USA; and Anita Thompson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA;

Part 3 Mitigating soil erosion

• 7.Assessing the effectiveness and history of buffer strip implementation in preventing soil sediment and nutrient losses to surface waters: Brian Kronvang and Dominik Zak, Aarhus University, Denmark; Eva Skarbøvik and Anne-Grete Buseth Blankenberg, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Norway; and Marc Stutter, The James Hutton Institute, UK;
• 8.The effects of no-till and related practices in preventing soil erosion: Michael Kucera, Formerly USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS)/National Soil Survey Center, USA;
• 9.The use of soil stabilizers to prevent erosion: G. J. Levy , Agricultural Research Organization, Israel; and A. I. Mamedov, Tottori University, Japan;