A strategic plan for future USDA Agricultural Research Service erosion research and model development
2020
Soil erosion is a natural process, and the erosion potential of a site is the result of complex interactions among soil, vegetation, topographic position, land use and management, and climate. Soil erosion occurs when aeolian and hydrologic processes exceed a soil’s inherent resistance to these forces (figures 1 and 2). Soil erosion was recognized as a significant problem at both local and national scales in the United States in the 1920s; by 1935 soil erosion was considered a national disaster, covering over one-half of the country (Sampson and Weyl 1918; Weaver 1935), and is still a concern with 21% of the western United States degraded and vulnerable to accelerated soil erosion (Herrick et al. 2010; Weltz et al. 2014a; Duniway et al. 2019). In 1995, it was estimated that 4 × 109 t (4.4 × 109 tn) of soil was lost from US cropland (Pimentel et al. 1995). The most vulnerable areas for soil movement and thus erosion occur where annual precipitation is 100 to 400 mm y–1 (4 to 16 in yr–1), which limits soil moisture available to sustain plant growth. Anthropogenic-driven dust emissions have dramatically increased across …
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