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, mapping 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 crop residues, cover crops, buffer strips, soil stabilisers and zero/no-tillage.

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.

Key features

• Reviews current understanding of the mechanisms of soil erosion, focussing on water-based and wind-based erosion processes
• Considers the effectiveness of mitigation measures to reduce soil erosion, including buffer strips, zero/no-tillage and cover crops
• Addresses recent advances in techniques used to measure, predict, track and model soil erosion, including digital soil mapping and proximal instrumental techniques

Table of contents

Part 1 Mechanisms
1.Advances in understanding water-based soil erosion processes: Dennis Flanagan, USDA-ARS/Purdue University, USA;
2.Advances in understanding wind-based soil erosion processes: Miriam Marzen, University of Trier, Germany;
3.Assessing the impact of tillage practices on soil erosion: Laura Alakukku, University of Helsinki, Finland;
4.Assessing the impact of climate change on soil erosion: Donald Mullan, Queen’s University of Belfast, UK;

Part 2 Measuring soil erosion
5.Advances in proximal instrumental techniques for measuring soil erosion: Javier Casali, University of Navarre (UPNA), Spain;
6.Advances in digital soil mapping to predict soil erosion: Chris Renschler, USDA-ARS, USA;
7.Advances in tracking sediment transport from agricultural soils: Tony Parsons, University of Sheffield, UK;
8.Advances in modelling soil erosion risk: Debu Misra, University of Alaska, USA;

Part 3 Mitigating soil erosion
9.Developments in landscape integrated soil and water conservation (LISWC): Peter Strauss, Institute for Land and Water Management Research, Austria;
10.Using cropping systems to reduce soil erosion: Javier Gonzalez, USDA-ARS, USA;
11.Assessing the effectiveness of buffer strips in preventing wind/water-based soil erosion and its effects: Brian Kronvang, Aarhus University, Denmark;
12.The effects of zero/conservation tillage practices in preventing soil erosion: Mike Kucera, USDA-ARS, USA;
13.Advances in slope engineering to reduce erosion of agricultural soils: Slobodan Mickovski, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK;
14.The use of soil stabilisers to prevent erosion: Guy Levy, Volcani Institute – Agricultural Research Organisation, Israel;