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Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems

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A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (8 August 2021) | Viewed by 32899

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Prof. Dr. Artemi Cerdà

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Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group, Department of Geography, Valencia University, Blasco Ibàñez, 28, 46010 Valencia, Spain
Interests: infiltration; erosion; soil; management; runoff
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Dr. Erick R. Bandala

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Division of Hydrologic Sciences, Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, NV 89119-7363, USA
Interests: water quality; water security; the food–energy–water nexus; nanosized materials; site restoration
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Dr. Yang Yu

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Guest Editor

School of Soil and Water Conservation, Jixian National Forest Ecosystem Observation and Research Station, CNERN, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
Interests: soil and water conservation; surface runoff; watershed management; water erosion; rainfall
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Dr. Jesús Rodrigo-Comino

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Guest Editor

1. Soil Erosion and Degradation Research Group, Department of Geography, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain
2. Physische Geographie und Wissens- und Technologietransfer Universität Trier, D - 54296 Trier, Germany
Interests: Soil geography; soil erosion; land degradation
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Soil erosion is a key process that controls biogeochemical cycles in the Earth System and is relevant when it comes to understanding land degradation processes and soil fertility. Agricultural and forestal soils sustainability is related to erosion rates, and land management should be carefully designed and implemented to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The significance of soil erosion processes and rates is magnified in arid and semiarid ecosystems because of the lack of vegetation cover acting as a buffer during high-magnitude, low-frequency rainfall events. Little is known about sustainable managements in arid and semiarid enviroments, and this Special Issue welcomes original research on: (i) soil erosion measurements; (ii) soil erosion modeling; (iii) experimental research; (iv) assessing sustainable management in agricultural and forestal land; (v) land use changes and impact on soil erosion rates; and (vi) holistic approaches to achieve sustainable management on the urban–rural interfaces.

Land degradation processes and rates in Arid and Semiarid areas of the world.

Prof. Dr. Artemi Cerdà
Dr. Erick R. Bandala
Dr. Yang Yu
Dr. Jesús Rodrigo-Comino
Guest Editors

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Keywords

land degradation
soil erosion
rates
measurements
arid and semiarid lands

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 4815 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Integrating Sediment (dis)Connectivity into a Sediment Yield Model for Semi-Arid Catchments

by Louise Lodenkemper, Kate Rowntree, Denis Hughes and Andrew Slaughter

Land 2021, 10(11), 1204; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10111204 - 7 Nov 2021

Viewed by 2764

Abstract

Soil erosion-associated sedimentation has become a significant global threat to sustainable land and water resources management. Semi-arid regions that characterise much of southern Africa are particularly at risk due to extreme hydrological regimes and sparse vegetative cover. This study aims to address the need for an erosion and sediment delivery model that successfully incorporates our conceptual understanding of sedimentation processes in semi-arid regions, particularly sediment storage and connectivity within a catchment. Priorities of the Semi-arid Sediment Yield Model (SASYM) were simplicity and practical applicability for land and water resource management while adhering to basic geomorphic and hydrological principles. SASYM was able to represent multiple sediment storages within a catchment to effectively represent a change in landscape connectivity over geomorphic timeframes. SASYM used the Pitman rainfall–runoff model disaggregated to a daily timescale, the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE), incorporating probability function theory and a representation of sediment storages and connectors across a semi-distributed catchment. SASYM was applied to a catchment in the Karoo, South Africa. Although there were limited observed data, there was a historical dataset available for the catchment through dam sedimentation history. SASYM was able to effectively present this history and provide evidence for landscape connectivity change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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28 pages, 5308 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Acceleration of Soil Erosion by Different Land Uses in Arid Lands above ¹⁰Be Natural Background Rates: Case Study in the Sonoran Desert, USA

by Ara Jeong, Ronald I. Dorn, Yeong-Bae Seong and Byung-Yong Yu

Land 2021, 10(8), 834; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10080834 - 9 Aug 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3711

Abstract

Land use changes often lead to soil erosion, land degradation, and environmental deterioration. However, little is known about just how much humans accelerate erosion compared to natural background rates in non-agricultural settings, despite its importance to knowing the magnitude of soil degradation. The lack of understanding of anthropogenic acceleration is especially true for arid regions. Thus, we used ¹⁰Be catchment averaged denudation rates (CADRs) to obtain natural rates of soil erosion in and around the Phoenix metropolitan region, Arizona, United States. We then measured the acceleration of soil erosion by grazing, wildfire, and urban construction by comparing CADRs to erosion rates for the same watersheds, finding that: (i) grazing sometimes can increase sediment yields by up to 2.3–2.6x, (ii) human-set wildfires increased sediment yields by up to 9.7–10.4x, (iii) after some post-fire vegetation recovered, sediment yield was then up to 4.2–4.5x the background yield, (iv) construction increased sediment yields by up to 5.0–5.6x, and (v) the sealing of urban surfaces led to one-tenth to one-half of the background sediment yields. The acceleration of erosion at the urban–rural interface in arid lands highlights the need for sustainable management of arid-region soils. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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18 pages, 9925 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Impact of Land Use Changes on the Erosion Processes of a Degraded Rural Landscape: An Analysis Based on High-Resolution DEMs, Historical Images, and Soil Erosion Models

by Dario Gioia, Antonio Minervino Amodio, Agata Maggio and Canio Alfieri Sabia

Land 2021, 10(7), 673; https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070673 - 26 Jun 2021

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 3151

Abstract

Soil erosion is one of the major natural risk factors for developing high-value crops and an accurate estimation of spatial distribution and rates of soil degradation can be crucial to prevent crop degradation. In this paper, we use comparisons between high-resolution DEMs and soil erosion models to uncover the short-term landscape evolution of hazelnut crop yields, which are affected by incipient processes of rill development. Maps of rill initiation and evolution were extracted from the analysis of UAV-based multitemporal DEMs and the application of soil erosion models. A comparison between such a short-term analysis and historical orthophotos was carried out. Such a comparison shows how the USPED model predicts, very reliably, where linear erosion occurred. In fact, a reliable overlay between the linear erosive forms predicted by the USPED model and those captured by the UAV images can be observed. Furthermore, land use changes from 1974 to 2020 are characterized by a transition from abandoned areas (1974) to areas with high-value cultivation (2020), which has a strong impact on the spatial distribution of erosion processes and landslide occurrence. Such data represent a key tool for both the investigation of the spatial distribution of hot-spots of soil degradation and the identification of effective mitigation practices of soil conservation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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23 pages, 6513 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluating the Efficiency of Different Regression, Decision Tree, and Bayesian Machine Learning Algorithms in Spatial Piping Erosion Susceptibility Using ALOS/PALSAR Data

by Shahab S. Band, Saeid Janizadeh, Sunil Saha, Kaustuv Mukherjee, Saeid Khosrobeigi Bozchaloei, Artemi Cerdà, Manouchehr Shokri and Amirhosein Mosavi

Land 2020, 9(10), 346; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9100346 - 23 Sep 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 3941

Abstract

Piping erosion is one form of water erosion that leads to significant changes in the landscape and environmental degradation. In the present study, we evaluated piping erosion modeling in the Zarandieh watershed of Markazi province in Iran based on random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and Bayesian generalized linear models (Bayesian GLM) machine learning algorithms. For this goal, due to the importance of various geo-environmental and soil properties in the evolution and creation of piping erosion, 18 variables were considered for modeling the piping erosion susceptibility in the Zarandieh watershed. A total of 152 points of piping erosion were recognized in the study area that were divided into training (70%) and validation (30%) for modeling. The area under curve (AUC) was used to assess the effeciency of the RF, SVM, and Bayesian GLM. Piping erosion susceptibility results indicated that all three RF, SVM, and Bayesian GLM models had high efficiency in the testing step, such as the AUC shown with values of 0.9 for RF, 0.88 for SVM, and 0.87 for Bayesian GLM. Altitude, pH, and bulk density were the variables that had the greatest influence on the piping erosion susceptibility in the Zarandieh watershed. This result indicates that geo-environmental and soil chemical variables are accountable for the expansion of piping erosion in the Zarandieh watershed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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12 pages, 3097 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Airflow Field Around Hippophae rhamnoides in Alpine Semi-Arid Desert

by Lihui Tian, Wangyang Wu, Dengshan Zhang and Yang Yu

Land 2020, 9(5), 140; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9050140 - 6 May 2020

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2230

Abstract

The research on wind regimes and the wind protection mechanism of sand-fixing plants has mainly relied on wind tunnel experiments; few observations have been made in the field. At the same time, airflow around individual standing vegetation elements and communities is relatively lacking in alpine semi-arid deserts. Therefore, this paper selected 10-year-old Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn) on sandy land on the eastern shore of Qinghai Lake as the study object. Based on spatial and temporal changes of wind regime in the afforestation forest, a structural simulation of airflow near the plant and at different layers above the ground, and the annual changes in wind protection, we studied the wind protection mechanisms of H. rhamnoides as single elements or communities. The results were as follows: the effective protection length of the sublayer of H. rhamnoides was 1.0 to 1.8 m. The higher the layer, the smaller the decrease in wind velocity behind elements, and the smaller the effective protection length. Wind velocity downwind of H. rhamnoides increased, with height increasing where the airflow decreases rate (R) decreased in the sublayer, and increasing in the middle layer as plant height increased. Meanwhile, the airflow decreases rate (R) was negative in the upper layer because it decreased as the plant height increased. The airflow movement between elements had various directions because the upper layer was prone to fluctuations due to the swinging of the crown and branches, and turbulence was seen at the sublayers owing to the mechanical resistance of the elements. When the wind speed at the standard point was 8.5 m/s and the wind direction was east (E), the increase of airflow velocity at the side and center in the upper layer was more significant, and there was a strong wind zone in the azimuth of NW‒N‒NE‒E‒SE, while the S‒SW‒W azimuth zone was weaker. The sand-fixing shrub H. rhamnoides had a significant windproof function, and the 1.5 m square interval density of H. rhamnoides was suitable for alpine desert control projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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17 pages, 7765 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Applying the RUSLE and ISUM in the Tierra de Barros Vineyards (Extremadura, Spain) to Estimate Soil Mobilisation Rates

by Jesús Barrena-González, Jesús Rodrigo-Comino, Yeboah Gyasi-Agyei, Manuel Pulido Fernández and Artemi Cerdà

Land 2020, 9(3), 93; https://doi.org/10.3390/land9030093 - 23 Mar 2020

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 5125

Abstract

Spain is one of the largest wine producers in the world, with Extremadura (south-west Spain) being its second-largest producing region after Castilla La Mancha. Within Extremadura, the most traditional and productive viticulture region is the Tierra de Barros, which boasts an annual production of 3×10⁶ litres. However, no soil erosion assessment has been undertaken in any vineyard in the region to ascertain environmental sustainability. Therefore, the Improved Stock Unearthing Method (ISUM) and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) were applied to assess the long-term soil erosion rates. Both methods were applied using an experimental plot (2.8 m × 148.5 m) encompassing 99 paired vines in a 20-year-old vineyard under a tillage management system and on bare soils throughout the year. The ISUM and RUSLE found total soil mobilization values of 45.7 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ and 17.4 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, respectively, a difference of about 5 times. Mapping techniques showed that soil surface declined to an average of −6.2 cm, with maximum values of −28 cm. The highest values of soil depletion were mainly observed in the upper part and the form of linear features following the hillslope direction. On the other hand, under the vines, the soil surface level showed accumulations of up to +2.37 cm due to tillage practices. Our study demonstrated the potential of high soil erosion rates occurring in conventional vineyards managed with tillage in the inter-row areas and herbicides under the vines within the Tierra de Barros. Also, we demonstrated the elevated differences in soil mobilisation rates using the ISUM and RUSLE. Therefore, further research must be conducted in other vineyards to determine the suitability of the models for assessing soil erosion rates. Undoubtedly, soil conservation measures must be designed and applied immediately due to high erosion rates. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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16 pages, 7255 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Temporal Variation in Preferential Water Flow during Natural Vegetation Restoration on Abandoned Farmland in the Loess Plateau of China

by Rui Wang, Zhibao Dong, Zhengchao Zhou and Peipei Wang

Land 2019, 8(12), 186; https://doi.org/10.3390/land8120186 - 6 Dec 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2919

Abstract

The restoration of vegetation in abandoned farmlands is an effective approach to control soil erosion on the Chinese Loess Plateau. However, few studies have investigated the effect of natural restoration age on the infiltration patterns and preferential flow in soil layers. This study examined the effect of the temporal variations in the degree of preferential flow and their contribution on the total infiltration in abandoned farmlands restored with different vegetation communities. In total, four sites were investigated, namely site AF3, AF12, AF18 and AF25 of restoration age of 3, 12, 18 and 25 years, respectively. A traditional dye tracer experiment was adopted to visualize the water flow behavior in the four sites. A semi-variance analysis was conducted to interpret the spatial variability of the soil water induced by infiltration. The results showed that both the soil properties and the root systems improved with the increased natural restoration ages combined with the effect of the plant species. The degree of preferential flow from the lowest to the highest occurred in AF3, AF12, AF18 and AF25, which was mainly affected by the development of root systems. Also, the abundant lateral root and steeper slope may have caused the presence of lateral flow in AF18 and AF25. Meanwhile, the spatial variability of the soil water in the infiltration patterns through vertical soil profiles increased from AF3 to AF25. Compared to AF3, the infiltration volume through preferential pathways in AF12, AF18 and AF25 increased by 1.73 times, 1.94 times and 4.09 times, respectively. Therefore, the preferential flow was improved in abandoned farmland in the presence of natural vegetation restoration that can increase water storage in the deep soil layer and reduce surface runoff and erosion. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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15 pages, 5417 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Ecosystem Effects of Sand-Binding Shrub Hippophae rhamnoides in Alpine Semi-Arid Desert in the Northeastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

by Lihui Tian, Wangyang Wu, Xin Zhou, Dengshan Zhang, Yang Yu, Haijiao Wang and Qiaoyu Wang

Land 2019, 8(12), 183; https://doi.org/10.3390/land8120183 - 29 Nov 2019

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 3014

Abstract

The planting of sand-binding vegetation in the Qinghai Lake watershed at the northeastern edge of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau began in 1980. For this paper, we took the desert on the eastern shore of Qinghai Lake as the study area. We analyzed a variety of aged Hippophae rhamnoides communities and aeolian activities, and we discuss the relationship between them. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) With an increasing number of binding years, the species composition became more abundant, natural vegetation began to recover, and biodiversity increased year by year. At the same time, plant height, canopy width, and community coverage increased, but H. rhamnoides coverage was reduced to 36.70% as coverage of Artemisia desertorum increased to 25.67% after 10 years of fixing. The biomass of H. rhamnoides increased significantly, especially the underground biomass. For example, the biomass of area 15a was about 10 to 30 times that of area 1a. (2) Plants are a useful obstacle to aeolian activity. The presence of plants reduced the wind flow in the upper parts of the plants, but it did not have obvious regular characteristics. The longer the fixation term, the lower the surface sediment transport. It is significant that the sediment transport amount in winter was four times that in the summer. After 15 years of binding, H. rhamnoides grows well, and the community is still stable in the study area. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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12 pages, 2755 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Influence of Landscape Pattern Changes on Runoff and Sediment in the Dali River Watershed on the Loess Plateau of China

by Yan Zhang, Zhilei Bi, Xin Zhang and Yang Yu

Land 2019, 8(12), 180; https://doi.org/10.3390/land8120180 - 24 Nov 2019

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 4318

Abstract

The large-scale Grain for Green project on the Loess Plateau of China significantly changes the regional landscape pattern, which has a profound impact on runoff and sediment process. The relationship between landscape pattern and runoff and sediment in the Dali River watershed is established. Cropland and grassland areas in the watershed show a downward trend, whereas the woodland and building land increases continuously. The Number of Patches (NP), Patch Density (PD) and Landscape Diversity (SHDI), Landscape Division Index (DIVISION) increase significantly. The Largest Patch Index (LPI) and Landscape Shape Index (LSI) show overall change in the rising and falling rule. The Contagion Index (CONTAG) and Cohesion Index (COHESION) first increase, then decrease. A decreasing trend is shown by runoff and sediment. The annual runoff in 2010 was 29.76% less than in 1960, and the annual sediment load was 84.87% less. NP, PD, COHESION, DIVISION and SHDI have a significant negative correlation with runoff and sediment, and CONTAG and runoff sediment are positively related. This study could provide theoretical support for guiding watershed land use and landscape planning to effectively reduce runoff and sediment transport. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Erosion Processes and Rates in Arid and Semiarid Ecosystems)

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