The Potential Impact of Climate Change and Land Use on Future Soil Erosion, Based on the Example of Southeast Serbia

Soil erosion caused by climate change and changes in land use increases or decreases depending on the geographic location, climate scenarios, precipitation patterns, topographic potential, and land management practices. Forf this reason, the impact of climate change on soil erosion needs to be analysed at the regional and/or local levels. Bearing in mind that climate and land use will change in the future, the purpose of this chapter is to quantify the current intensity of soil erosion, taking the Vranjska Valley (southern Serbia) as an example, to simulate soil losses for 2050 and 2100 due to changes in climate and land use, and to analyse the spatial and temporal grouping of clusters of soil loss for 2015 and 2100. The Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) of the sediment delivery ratio (SDR) model integrated with the EBU-POM (Eta Belgrade University-Princeton Ocean Model) regional climate model was used with the aim of quantifying erosion intensity in the Vranjska Valley region. The results of research in the Vranjska Valley region show that average erosion intensity during 2015 amounted to 5.33 t ha−1 yr−1. According to the A1B scenario, average annual soil loss is expected to fall for the two periods in the future, by 6.6% (2050) and 41.8% (2100), mainly as a result of a reduction in the rainfall erosivity factor. Measures which could protect soil effectively in the future include reforestation with drought-resistant species, soil conservation, no-till practices, and an evaluation of current erosion models.