The microtopography of the soil surface (mm to dm range) is a crucial factor in understanding and monitoring soil erosion. It influences the dissipation of rain-drop energy, determines the hydraulics of surface runoff, and it is changed by transport and sedimentation of soil particles. We used a high-resolution terrestrial laser scanner to assess erosion risks due to mechanized logging with cra...

Soil loss erosion is one of the most serious environmental problems (widespread globally), which is a menace to sustainable ecosystems and agriculture. As the previous studies show, the world’s highest soil loss rates due to erosion are in three continents, i.e. Asia, Africa, and South America. A new method was proposed to statistically evaluate the most appropriate cell size for LS factor inpu...

38 In unburned forests, organic plant litter and live vegetation help stabilize the soil and promote water infiltration. Much of this plant material is consumed during severe wildfires, leaving the bare ground susceptible to elevated postfire water runoff and soil erosion (Shakesby and Doerr 2006). Severe wildfires can also produce a water-repellant layer in the soil that further decreases wate...

runoff and erosion rates by one or more orders of magnitude, and these increases can threaten life and property as well as severely degrading water quality and aquatic ecosystems. Each year millions of dollars are spent on emergency postfire rehabilitation treatments to minimize flood runoff and soil erosion. Few data have been available to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of these tre...

The year to year carry-over effects of biomass additions under different plant populations on runoff and erosion are unclear. The objective of this study was to quantify the impact of different plant populations on residue cover to elucidate the effects of residue cover on runoff and erosion. The residue management system involved shredding of corn (maize) biomass after harvest, incorporating t...