Erosion control strategies? Soil erosion is a complex process that depends on soil properties, ground slope, vegetation, and rainfall amount and intensity. According to Montgomery, modifications in land use are one of the most impactful ways of accelerating soil erosion. These changes then have a cascade effect as the loss of fertile topsoil cover sends millions of tons of sediments into lakes and reservoirs, changing ecosystems and impacting agricultural production and water quality. This has been the case with the Bo River in Vietnam. Despite these types of soil erosion, as we have briefly mentioned above, if it wasn’t for human activities, today’s soils would be less susceptible to erosion and more resilient. What are the human causes behind soil erosion then?

Water is nature’s most versatile tool. For example, take rain on a frigid day. The water pools in cracks and crevices. Then, at night, the temperature drops and the water expands as it turns to ice, splitting the rock like a sledgehammer to a wedge. The next day, under the beating sun, the ice melts and trickles the cracked fragments away. Repeated swings in temperature can also weaken and eventually fragment rock, which expands when hot and shrinks when cold. Such pulsing slowly turns stones in the arid desert to sand. Likewise, constant cycles from wet to dry will crumble clay.

The abrasive action of sand and pebbles washed against shorelines is probably the most significant wave erosional activity. Particles are dragged back and forth by wave action, abrading the bedrock along the coast and abrading each other, gradually wearing pebbles into sand. Wave erosion creates retrograde, or retreating, shorelines with sea cliffs, wave-cut benches at the base of the sea cliffs, and sea arches—curved or rectangularly shaped archways that result from different rates of erosion due to varied bedrock resistance. Besides the back-and-forth transportation of materials by wave action, sediments are transported by the lateral movement of waves after they wash ashore (beach drifting) or by shallow-water transport just offshore, known as longshore currents. These transportational movements lead to deposition and the formation of prograde, or advancing, shorelines, bars, spits, bayhead beaches (a bayhead beach is formed between two headlands), and barrier beaches (a barrier beach parallels the shore). Discover additional info on https://ippio.com/erosion-control-guide-swppp-silt-fence-curlex-blanket/amp/ guide.

We aim at assessing the impacts of forest ecosystem management practices (e.g., selection of tree species, harvesting) on soil protection, as its planning schedule impacts soil erosion over the long-term (Lu et al. 2004; Panagos et al. 2014, 2015b). Our research examines how management practices contribute to change the vegetation cover over time. It further encapsulates these changes within the RUSLE, by determining the corresponding C-factor. Seven stand-level forest management models (sFMM), i.e., sequences of management practices, with species-specific rotations, over a 90-year time span, are used for testing purposes. Specifically, we assess and compare sFMM according to their potential for the provision of water-related ecosystem services under two climate scenarios.

Planting grass in heavily eroded areas is called an agrostological measure. Ley farming practices cultivating grass in rotation with regular crops to increase the nutrient level in the soils. When the grass is harvested it can be used as fodder for cattle. For heavily eroded soil it is recommended to grown grass for many years to let the soils naturally repair themselves. This is the method of growing crops year-round without changing the topography of the soil by tilling or contouring. This technique increases the amount of water that penetrates the soil and can increase organic matter of the soil which leads to larger yields.