TITLE:
A Review of Soil Erosion Estimation Methods
AUTHORS:
Amílcar Mateus de Oliveira Salumbo
KEYWORDS:
Soil Erosion, Land Degradation, Estimation, Soil Conservation, Models
JOURNAL NAME:
Agricultural Sciences,
Vol.11 No.8,
August
5,
2020
ABSTRACT: Soil erosion has been seen as a major contributor to the
loss of soil fertility and land degradation in many parts of the world. It is a
very sensitive process for agriculture, since it is linked to the decrease of
crops productivity along the time. Although it occurs in almost all latitudes on the
planet, its effect is particularly severe in tropical climates, mainly due to
frequently high rainfall intensities in those areas. The measurement of soil loss on
experimental plots has provided valuable information for soil conservation
plans, and data collected have contributed to deriving methods and equations that can estimate the extent of soil water erosion
occurring under certain conditions. However, these methods are data hungry, and
a solid research framework is needed to provide the required information to
validate and use different models and equations generated elsewhere, to
calculate the rate of erosion in a given place. Because estimating erosion
rates is critical for conservation planning, the best fit models need to be
well chosen and applied according to the local conditions. This article
provides a review of some of the most used models for soil erosion estimation,
with the purpose to provide some guidance to those involved in these studies.