Soil conservation

About: Soil conservation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10103 publications have been published within this topic receiving 214549 citations.

Predicting rainfall erosion losses : a guide to conservation planning

Abstract: The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) enables planners to predict the average rate of soil erosion for each feasible alternative combination of crop system and management practices in association with a specified soil type, rainfall pattern, and topography. When these predicted losses are compared with given soil loss tolerances, they provide specific guidelines for effecting erosion control within specified limits. The equation groups the numerous interrelated physical and management parameters that influence erosion rate under six major factors whose site-specific values can be expressed numerically. A half century of erosion research in many states has supplied information from which at least approximate values of the USLE factors can be obtained for specified farm fields or other small erosion prone areas throughout the United States. Tables and charts presented in this handbook make this information available for field use. Significant limitations in the data are identified. The USLE is an erosion model designed to compute longtime average soil losses from sheet and rill erosion under specified conditions. It is also useful for construction sites and other non-agricultural conditons, but it does not predict deposition and does not compute sediment yields from gully, streambank, and streambed erosion

Environmental and Economic Costs of Soil Erosion and Conservation Benefits

Abstract: Soil erosion is a major environmental threat to the sustainability and productive capacity of agriculture. During the last 40 years, nearly one-third of the world's arable land has been lost by erosion and continues to be lost at a rate of more than 10 million hectares per year. With the addition of a quarter of a million people each day, the world population's food demand is increasing at a time when per capita food productivity is beginning to decline.

Soil Erosion and Conservation

Abstract: This is a review of worldwide land degradation problems. Four themes are emphasized: delineating and estimating the magnitude of soil erosion, quantifying erosion and sedimentation impacts on land productivity, establishing quantitative values for erosion-causing parameters, and implementing global and regional soil and water conservation programs. Papers deal with both developing and developed countries and illustrate how erosion control techniques used in developed countries can or cannot be applied in developing countries.

More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya

Abstract: This study "examines the interactions between people and the environment of the semi-arid Machakos District Kenya over a period of sixty years from 1930 to 1990. In the 1930s the district was considered an environmental disaster with famine relief and food imports needed between 1942 and 1962. Over the sixty years between 1930 and 1990 the population of the District increased more than five-fold however the environment in 1990 was in a much better condition than in the 1930s. Soil erosion had declined due to terraces in place to protect arable land and predictions of a wood fuel crisis were not fulfilled because of a larger number of farmed and protected trees. Additionally agricultural production...was higher and new technologies and farming systems had been introduced....This study combines the findings of physical and social scientists from the Overseas Development Institute London and the University of Nairobi Kenya. It uses conventional data oral history and photographic records....The study concludes with an explanation of the positive contribution that population growth in low density areas can have on economic and social development technology change and environmental sustainability under the right policies." (EXCERPT)