On-Site Water and Wind Erosion Experiments Reveal Relative Impact on Total Soil Erosion

Fire and grazing effects on wind erosion, soil water content, and soil temperature.

Selective grazing of burned patches can be intense if animal distribution is not controlled and may compound the independent effects of fire and grazing on soil characteristics. Our objectives were to quantify the effects of patch burning and grazing on wind erosion, soil water content, and soil temperature in sand sagebrush (Artemisia filifolia Torr.) mixed prairie. We selected 24, 4-ha plots ...

Soil property effects on wind erosion of organic soils

Histosols (also known as organic soils, mucks, or peats) are soils that are dominated by organic matter (OM > 20%) in half or more of the upper 80 cm. Forty two states have a total of 21 million ha of Histosols in the United States. These soils, when intensively cropped, are subject to wind erosion resulting in loss of crop productivity and degradation of soil, air, and water quality. Estimatin...

Sustainable soil and water resources: modelling soil erosion and its impact on the environment

With the projected increase in world population to 9 billion by 2050, along with per capita income growth, the demand for land and water resources is going to increase significantly. Conversion of land to intensive agriculture has led to dramatic decreases in plant, animal and insect biodiversity, with approximately 40% of the world’s land surface now covered by croplands and pastures. Intensiv...

Effect of soil composition on critical water erosion shear stress

Wind tunnel experiments on the effects of tillage ridge features on wind erosion horizontal fluxes

In order to parameterize horizontal soil fluxes produced by wind over tillage ridges, eight-ridge configurations composed of sandy soil and exhibiting ridge heights to ridge spacing (RH/RS) ratios ranging from 0.18 to 0.38 were experimented in a wind tunnel. These experiments are used to develop a parameterization of the horizontal fluxes over tillage ridged surfaces based only on the geometric...