3.2 — Soil erosion
Measures to control erosion
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Measures to control erosion and reflection lesson
Soil Conservation
To combat erosion, various strategies can be used:
Agronomic measures:
Maintain plant cover (e.g., mulching crop residues, cover crops, intercropping).
Management: adopt soil management practices that reduce soil erodibility and increase infiltration capacity (e.g., contour tillage, increasing soil organic matter, no-till), reduce slope length of arable fields by including vegetation strips (e.g., hedges, grass-strips, grassed waterways).
Structural: alter terrain to slow water flow (e.g., terracing).
Forestry practices:
Replace clear-cutting with methods such as strip logging or continuous cover forestry.
Where possible, schedule logging operations when the soil is frozen.
Plan (temporary) forest roads optimally to limit soil erosion alongside them.
Urbanisation:
In urban areas and for other infrastructure, it is important to manage generated surface water locally. This can be achieved by:
Using green roofs and rain beds
Installing retention buffers in urban areas
Implementing drainage systems to divert the surplus surface water