All about erosion, a full guide? The most effective way of minimizing erosion is to guarantee a permanent surface cover on the soil surface, such as trees, pasture, or meadow. However, compared to original forest soils, soils in pasture fields and croplands have less capacity to hold up and are more susceptible to erosion. These soils also have less capacity to absorb water, which makes flooding (and its economic, social, and environmental impacts) more common. The increasingly high demand of a growing population for commodities such as coffee, soybean, palm oil or wheat is clearing land for agriculture. Unfortunately, clearing autochthonous trees and replacing them with new tree crops that don’t necessarily hold onto the soil increases the risks of soil erosion. With time, as topsoil (the most nutrient-rich part of the soil) is lost, putting agriculture under threat.
Rainwater also mixes with chemicals as it falls from the sky, forming an acidic concoction that dissolves rock. For example, acid rain dissolves limestone to form karst, a type of terrain filled with fissures, underground streams, and caves like the cenotes of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Back up on the mountains, snow and ice build up into glaciers that weigh on the rocks beneath and slowly push them downhill under the force of gravity. Together with advancing ice, the rocks carve out a path as the glacier slumps down the mountain. When the glacier begins to melt, it deposits its cargo of soil and rock, transporting the rocky debris toward the sea.
The broadest application of the term erosion embraces the general wearing down and molding of all landforms on Earth’s surface, including the weathering of rock in its original position, the transport of weathered material, and erosion caused by wind action and fluvial, marine, and glacial processes. This broad definition is more correctly called denudation, or degradation, and includes mass-movement processes. A narrow and somewhat limiting definition of erosion excludes the transport of eroded material by natural agencies, but the exclusion of the transport phenomenon makes the distinction between erosion and weathering very vague. Find even more information on erosion control guide.
Trees are widely known to impact the ecosystem hydrological cycle and resultant water availability and quality (Brown and Binkley 1994; Marc and Robinson 2007; Keenan and Van Dijk 2010; Carvalho-Santos et al. 2014). As vegetation cover plays a crucial role in erosion and runoff rates, afforestation is considered among the best options for soil conservation (Durán Zuazo and Rodríguez Pleguezuelo 2008; Lu et al. 2004; Gyssels et al. 2005; Panagos et al. 2015b; Ganasri and Ramesh 2016).
Soil erosion removes the topsoil that is necessary for organic matter, nutrients, micro-organisms that are required for plants to grow and shine. Soil conservation is one such step that protects the soil from being washed away. The soil then ends up in aquatic resources bringing in pesticides and fertilizers used on agricultural land. Healthy soil is important for plants to grow and flourish. Taking the necessary steps to conserve the soil as part of an environmentally friendly lifestyle. There are several ways to conserve soil that can be done through agricultural practices or measures you take at home.