The distribution of soil erosion as a function of slope aspect and parent material in Ciskei, Southern Africa

Weaver, Alex

doi:10.1007/bf00204406

Cited by 28 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Cerdà (1998) found that the soil erosion is usually higher in the south-facing slope due to lower vegetation cover. And similar findings were highlighted by Agassi et al (1990), Agassi and Ben-Hur (1991), Sidle et al (1993), van Breda Weaver (1991 and Bojie et al (1995). However, at the trail running of L'Alcúdia de Crespins the soil erosion is higher on the north-facing slopes, and this can be explained by the fact that trails behave differently from normal soils due to the lack of vegetation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Four-year soil erosion rates in a running-mountain trail in eastern Iberian Peninsula

Salesa

Cerdà

2019

CIG

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During the last decades, the use of mountain trails for running is more and more popular. New trails are opened to allow the runners to practice and compete. This form of human impact on the landscape is new as the new trails do not follow the conservation strategies in design and maintenance as traditional mountain trails constructed by farmers, shepherds and muleteers do. This impact of sport events in nature is not measured and we know little about this impact on vegetation, fauna and soils. We surveyed in September 2018 a trail that was opened in September 2014 and was used for four official mountain trail races, and for training by local runners. Our interviews with organizers and users show that 1054 runners passed during the competition days (4 races in 4 years) and over the 4-year period the trail was used approximately 43,800 times by a runner. We measured the current topography and calculated the soil lost. The results show extremely high erosion rates in the sloping terrain, with the highest rates in the north-facing slope, reaching up to 180.29 Mg ha-1 y-1, while in the flat section of the trail soil erosion rates are 107.56 Mg ha-1 y-1 and in the south-facing slope trail 128.93 Mg ha-1 y-1. Our study demonstrates that (i) soil erosion rates on trails can be easily estimated by measuring the deepest trail position enabling fast and cheap surveys; and (ii) that there is a need to establish conservation strategies on new trails to avoid non-sustainable soil losses in the Mediterranean mountains due to the sport activities such as the mountain trail races.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Four-year soil erosion rates in a running-mountain trail in eastern Iberian Peninsula

Salesa

Cerdà

2019

CIG

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“…This brief description of the state-of-the-art underscores the importance of parent material on soil processes. However, there is little research on the effects of parent material on soil erosion (Mohammadkhan et al 2011;Pennock et al 1995;Weaver, 1991), the evolution of the biological properties (Braithwaite et al 1984;Ulrich and Becker 2006) and availability of nutrients (Yavitt 2000;Yesilonis et al 2008). The role that parent materials play in soil erosion is also relevant to understanding the fate of the soils, their formation, and degradation (Nazari Samani et al 2016;Orgill et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of parent material on soil erosion within Mediterranean new vineyard plantations

Rodrigo‐Comino

Novara

Gyasi‐Agyei

et al. 2018

Engineering Geology

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Parent material can determine specific physical and chemical soil properties and, therefore, soil erosion rates. However, for new vine plantations, there is not enough research on soil erosion assessment on different parent materials which could be helpful for agricultural management plans. The main aim of this research was to quantify soil erosion rates of two recent vineyard plantations under similar climate and land use management conditions, but on different parent materials, namely colluvium (2 years old) and marls (8 years old), located within the Les Alcusses valley vineyards in Eastern Spain. To achieve this goal, the ISUM (improved stock unearthing method) was applied. ISUM involves measurements of vertical distances from a horizontally stretched meter band attached to opposite pair vine plants to the topsoil surface at 5 sampling points along the cross sections of the pair vine rows. The original surface level was determined from the fixed distance of 2 cm of the graft unions from the soil surface. Digital elevation modelling of the vertical measurements was used to infer the erosion rates. Annual total soil erosion rates were 87.7 Mg ha −1 year −1 and 4.35 Mg ha −1 year −1 in the marls and colluvium plots, respectively. For the marls plot, 67% of the depletion occurred in the inter-row areas, whereas for the colluvium plot the inter-row areas registered 4.78 Mg ha −1 year −1 depletion and the row areas showed only a deposition of 0.44 Mg ha −1 year −1. We hypothesised that the inter-row areas registered the highest erosion rates due to the tillage practices. In the row areas, the cover of the vines possibly reduced soil erosion rates and acted as sinks for sediments. This behaviour of the inter-row areas acting as sources and the row areas as sinks for sediments was more evident on the colluvium plot, while most sections on the marls plot showed intense erosion features. It is suggested that more attention should be paid by policymakers and stakeholders to these differences when new plantations are introduced on marls and colluvium vineyards. We claim that initial soil erosion control measures should be applied during the first few years of plantations instead of when the vineyards are much older and soil has already been mobilised. It is well-known that soil formation is a consequence of the weathering of the rocks, the decomposition of the organic matter and the turnover of the materials, minerals, water, organic matter, air and life, which result in the horizon formation (Wagai et al. 2008; Duchaufour 1997; Fitzpatrick 1980; Chesworth 1973). Moreover, some specific soil degradation phenomena occur in connection with certain parent materials due to the abundance of other environmental and anthropogenic factors which reduce soil depths, organic matter, biota activity, water retention capacity, and fertility (Orgill et al. 2017). Soil erosion is a key process that determines the soil fate in natural ecosystems, and parent material again plays a key role as it determines

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“…With respect to the lithology, type A gullies occurred predominantly in sheetwash colluvium mantles overlying the mudstones and sandstones of the Adelaide Subgroup, while type B gullies developed principally in the Tarkastad Subgroup, characterized by terrain influenced by the alternating sandstone and mudrock beds, which is evidence of the development of gullies in soils derived from these formations that was already found [33,93]). However, our detailed mapping showed that the published 1:250,000 geological map does not delineate the full extent of Masotcheni Formation colluvia in this area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Evaluation of Gully Erosion Susceptibility Using a Maximum Entropy Model in the Upper Mkhomazi River Basin in South Africa

Bernini

Bosino

Botha

et al. 2021

IJGI

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Soil erosion is one of the most challenging environmental issues in the world, causing unsustainable soil loss every year. In South Africa, several episodes of gully erosion have been documented and clearly linked to the presence of Quaternary colluvial deposits on the Drakensberg Mountain footslopes. The aim of this study was to identify and assess the triggering factors of gully erosion in the upper Mkhomazi River basin in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We compiled a gully inventory map and applied remote sensing techniques as well as field surveys to validate the gully inventory. The gullies were subdivided into slope gullies and fluvial gullies. We derived susceptibility maps based on the spatial distribution of gully types to assess the most important driving factors. A stochastic modeling approach (MaxEnt) was applied, and the results showed two susceptibility maps within the spatial distribution of the gully erosion probability. To validate the MaxEnt model results, a subset of the existing inventory map was used. Additionally, by using areas with high susceptibilities, we were able to delineate previously unmapped colluvial deposits in the region. This predictive mapping tool can be applied to provide a theoretical basis for highlighting erosion-sensitive substrates to reduce the risk of expanding gully erosion.

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The distribution of soil erosion as a function of slope aspect and parent material in Ciskei, Southern Africa

Cited by 28 publications

References 14 publications

Four-year soil erosion rates in a running-mountain trail in eastern Iberian Peninsula

Four-year soil erosion rates in a running-mountain trail in eastern Iberian Peninsula

Effects of parent material on soil erosion within Mediterranean new vineyard plantations

Evaluation of Gully Erosion Susceptibility Using a Maximum Entropy Model in the Upper Mkhomazi River Basin in South Africa

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