Soil Erosion in Europe

Abstract

Lithuania has a temperate climate, transitional between maritime and continental. Weather conditions are variable, with frequent winter frosts and cool, humid summers. The mean annual temperature is 6 C; the January mean is À4.8 C and July 17.2 C. The climate is humid, with a mean annual precipitation of 675 mm. However, this is spatially variable, being highest (920 mm) in the south-west Zemaiciai Uplands and lowest (520 mm) in the northern Central Lithuanian Lowland. The Lithuanian climate is conducive to water erosion and heavy showers are particularly erosive. Heavy showers with >30 mm of rain occur in the Central Lithuanian Lowland about once every 2 years, in the south-west Zemaiciai Uplands about three times every 2 years and elsewhere about once per year. The mean wind velocity on the Baltic coast is 5.5-6.0 m s À1 and decreases to 2.9-3.5 m s À1 inland. In winter, owing to active cyclonic activity, wind velocities are 1-2 m s À1 greater than in summer (Arlauskiene et al., 2001).Lithuania occupies the western fringe of the East European Plain and is predominantly a lowland country. These lowlands are separated by hilly uplands, forming two meridian-oriented stretches. The western edge of the Baltic Uplands is in the east and south of the Republic, where erosion processes affect large areas. The 'island-like' Zemaiciai Upland is in the west, where erosion processes affect 5.1-20 and 20-30% of the undulating terrain (Figure 1.6.1).Moraines are the prevalent soil parent material, deposited in glacial margin and basal conditions. Ground moraine covers 30% of the national territory and glacial margin formations 27%. Glacio-lacustrine formations cover 23% and fluvioglacial formations 7%. Peaty, marine (littoral), aeolian and karst formations occupy only 0.2-1% (Arlauskiene et al., 2001).

Denudation variability of the Sila Massif upland (Italy) from decades to millennia using 10Be and 239+240Pu

“…Up to now, deciphering the temporal development of soil erosion or denudation (and related soil production) over millennia has been difficult (Bajard et al, 2017;Boardman & Poesen, 2007;Poesen, 2018), and our knowledge in this field remains incomplete and fragmented. Neglecting the fact that soil erosion processes are discontinuous over time weakens the understanding of a modern degradation mechanism that has a huge economic and environmental impact (Pimentel, 2006).…”

Ice nucleation activity of agricultural soil dust aerosols from Mongolia, Argentina, and Germany

“…Even though atmospheric dust concentrations are largely dominated by emissions from desert areas, widespread intensification of land use has led to increasing emissions from agricultural areas [Ginoux et al, 2012]. However, estimates regarding the contribution of agricultural areas to the global dust burden are not very well confined and range from less than 10% [Tegen et al, 2004] to 20-50% [Funk and Reuter, 2006;Forster et al, 2007;Ginoux et al, 2012]. Nevertheless, due to the high mass fraction of presumably ice-active biological material accompanying agricultural soil dusts, even a minor contribution of soil dust sources to the total atmospheric dust burden may have a significant impact on the abundance of atmospheric particles nucleating ice in mixed-phase clouds [Conen et al, 2011;O'Sullivan et al, 2014].…”

Soil Scientific Research Methods Used in Archaeology - Promising Soil Biochemistry: a Mini-review

“…Although the geology angle of archaeology in America seemed stronger in earlier times, the pedology angle has never been out of the scene. Soil erosion has since the beginning of soil study been seen as the greatest soil degradation factor hence soil erosion became an integral part in geoarchaeology (Boardman and Poesen, 2006;White, 2013).…”