The change in land use and land cover (LULC) from natural vegetation to agricultural in mountain areas usually dramatically accelerates soil erosion rates if the land is used for crop production. The aim of research was to calculate soil erosion magnitude basing on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in response to long‐term changes in LULC in an agricultural Homerka catchment (19.3 km2) of the Polish Carpathians. The changes in LULC were derived from cadastral maps for 1846 and orthophotomaps for 2009. Three variants with different factors, rainfall–run‐off erosivity (R), practice support (P), and LULC, were analysed to investigate which has had the greatest impact on soil erosion changes over the last 160 years. An increase in forest area (by 67.81%) and decrease in cultivated land (by 91.94%) were observed, primarily due to the collapse of the communist system. The estimated soil erosion using the RUSLE model in the analysed catchment decreased by 77% (from 18.13 t ha−1 yr−1 in 1846 to 4.11 t ha−1 yr−1 in 2009). The long‐term changes in soil erosion rates and their spatial distribution are mainly associated with transformation from cultivated land to forest or grassland. The P factor was responsible for reduction of soil erosion rates by 8%, a minor impact. Over the last 160 years, the average and maximum annual precipitation changes were also statistically insignificant. Results reveal a dominant role of human impact, particularly with respect to LULC on soil erosion changes in mid‐mountain areas.
Val ues of rain fall thresh olds on se lected shal low land slide slopes (Dzia³, GwoŸdziec) lo cated in the Nowy Wioenicz Foot hills are de ter mined us ing a phys i cally-based slope sta bil ity model con sid er ing a long-term pe riod of anal y sis (GeoSlope Inc. soft ware). Slope sta bil ity anal y sis in cluded de ter mi na tion of the im pact of rain fall on changes of stress state within the soil sub strate and their in flu ence on es ti ma tion of mass move ment risk. The slope sta bil ity cal cu la tion re sults have shown that the rain fall thresh old val ues are a func tion of many vari ables, pri mar ily the hy drau lic prop er ties of soil and rock sub stra tum, tem po ral dis tri bu tion of pre cip i ta tion, and soil mois ture con tent con di tions in the pe riod pro ceed ing rain fall. The re sults of the cal cu la tions in di cate that, in ex treme cases, ac cu mu lated rain fall thresh old val ues for the same slope can range from ~100 to 500 mm. Es ti mated rain fall thresh old val ues were lower than those val ues re ported in the lit er a ture for the Pol ish Carpathians, but are sim i lar to those de ter mined by Guzetti et al. (2007) for Cen tral and South ern Eu rope.
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