Soil water erosion on Mediterranean vineyards: A review

Prosdocimi, Massimo; Cerdà, Artemi; Tarolli, Paolo

doi:10.1016/j.catena.2016.02.010

Cited by 308 publications

(213 citation statements)

References 155 publications

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“…Nowadays, most of the people in the world remain heavily dependent on soil resources as their main livelihood source, what leads to soil degradation. Soil erosion is a worldwide environmental problem that reduces the productivity of all natural ecosystems and agriculture, which threatens the lives of most smallholder farmers (Dai et al, 2015;Erkossa et al, 2015;Gessesse et al, 2015;Ochoa-Cueva et al, 2015;Taguas et al, 2015;Prosdocimi et al, 2016). Soil erosion by water is the greatest factor limiting agricultural productivity in the humid tropical regions (Sunday et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating soil erosion risk and evaluating erosion control measures for soil conservation planning at Koga watershed in the highlands of Ethiopia

Molla¹,

Sisheber²

2017

Solid Earth

140

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Abstract. Soil erosion is one of the major factors affecting sustainability of agricultural production in Ethiopia. The objective of this paper is to estimate soil erosion using the universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model and to evaluate soil conservation practices in a data-scarce watershed region. For this purpose, soil data, rainfall, erosion control practices, satellite images and topographic maps were collected to determine the RUSLE factors. In addition, measurements of randomly selected soil and water conservation structures were done at three sub-watersheds (Asanat, Debreyakob and Rim). This study was conducted in Koga watershed at upper part of the Blue Nile basin which is affected by high soil erosion rates. The area is characterized by undulating topography caused by intensive agricultural practices with poor soil conservation practices. The soil loss rates were determined and conservation strategies have been evaluated under different slope classes and land uses. The results showed that the watershed is affected by high soil erosion rates (on average 42 t ha −1 yr −1 ), greater than the maximum tolerable soil loss (18 t ha −1 yr −1 ). The highest soil loss (456 t ha −1 yr −1 ) estimated from the upper watershed occurred on cultivated lands of steep slopes. As a result, soil erosion is mainly aggravated by land-use conflicts and topographic factors and the rugged topographic land forms of the area. The study also demonstrated that the contribution of existing soil conservation structures to erosion control is very small due to incorrect design and poor management. About 35 % out of the existing structures can reduce soil loss significantly since they were constructed correctly. Most of the existing structures were demolished due to the sediment overload, vulnerability to livestock damage and intense rainfall. Therefore, appropriate and standardized soil and water conservation measures for different erosion-prone land uses and land forms need to be implemented in Koga watershed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating soil erosion risk and evaluating erosion control measures for soil conservation planning at Koga watershed in the highlands of Ethiopia

Molla¹,

Sisheber²

2017

Solid Earth

140

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“…For example, the recovery of the cultivation of grapevines in a slope could lead to the development of a drainage system of the superficial and of the shallow waters and to modification on the slope morphology for the implantation of the vineyards. While the abandonment of previously cultivated vineyards induces changes in flow direction and regulation, with direct consequences on sediment production and delivery (Cevasco et al, 2014;Lieskovsky and Kenderessy, 2014;Tarolli et al, 2014;Prosdocimi et al, 2016). These actions could influence the movement of the rainwater and of the sediment mobilized by runoff, then reduce the connectivity and also the potential susceptibility of a road located downstream.…”

Section: Gam Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimation of the susceptibility of a road network to shallow landslides with the integration of the sediment connectivity

Bordoni

Persichillo

Meisina

et al. 2018

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Landslides cause severe damage to the road network of the hit zone, in terms of both direct (partial or complete destruction of a road or blockages) and indirect (traffic restriction or the cut-off of a certain area) costs. Thus, the identification of the parts of the road network that are more susceptible to landslides is fundamental to reduce the risk to the population potentially exposed and the financial expense caused by the damage. For these reasons, this paper aimed to develop and test a data-driven model for the identification of road sectors that are susceptible to being hit by shallow landslides triggered in slopes upstream from the infrastructure. This model was based on the Generalized Additive Method, where the function relating predictors and response variable is an empirically fitted smooth function that allows fitting the data in the more likely functional form, considering also non-linear relations. This work also analyzed the importance, on the estimation of the susceptibility, of considering or not the sediment connectivity, which influences the path and the travel distance of the materials mobilized by a slope failure until hitting a potential barrier such as a road. The study was carried out in a catchment of northeastern Oltrepò Pavese (northern Italy), where several shallow landslides affected roads in the last 8 years. The most significant explanatory variables were selected by a random partition of the available dataset in two parts (training and test subsets), 100 times according to a bootstrap procedure. These variables (selected 80 times by the bootstrap procedure) were used to build the final susceptibility model, the accuracy of which was estimated through a 100-fold repetition of the holdout method for regression, based on the training and test sets created through the 100 bootstrap model selection. The presented methodology allows the identification, in a robust and reliable way, of the most susceptible road sectors that could be hit by sediments delivered by landslides. The best predictive capability was obtained using a model in which the index of connectivity was also calculated according to a linear relationship, was considered. Most susceptible road traits resulted to be located below steep slopes with a limited height (lower than 50 m), where sediment connectivity is high. Different land use scenarios were considered in order to estimate possible changes in road susceptibility. Land use classes of the study area were characterized by similar connectivity features. As a consequence, variations on the susceptibility of the road network according to different scenarios of distribution of land cover were limited. The results of this research demonstrate the ability of the developed methodology in the assessment of susceptible roads. This could give the managers of infrastructure information about the criticality of the different road traits, thereby allowing attention and economic budgets to be shifted towards the most critical assets, where structural and non-structur...

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“…Among the cultivated lands, vineyards merit a particular attention, because, aside from representing one of the most important crops in terms of income and employment, they also constitute, for the Mediterranean areas, a form of agricultural land use that causes the highest soil losses (Cerdà and Doerr, 2007;Cerdan et al, 2010;Martínez-Casasnovas and Sánchez-Bosch, 2000;Prosdocimi et al, 2016a;Raclot et al, 2009;Rodrigo Comino et al, 2015;Rodrigo Comino et al, 2016c). One of the main reasons for this is the bare soil under the vines that is exposed to high intensity rainfall events, mainly concentrated in spring, autumn and winter, which characterize the Mediterranean climate (Arnáez et al, 2007;Borga et al, 2011;Garcìa-Ruiz, 2010;Prosdocimi et al, 2016a). For this cultivation, the two most common soil management techniques are considered to be tillage, where the weeds are usually removed mechanically, and no-tillage, where the weeds are usually removed chemically (Novara et al, 2011;Raclot et al, 2009), and both of them generally turn out in bare soil management during the whole year.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This induces difficulties in comparing data coming from different studies and obtained with different methodologies. Based on the paper review of Prosdocimi et al (2016a), six different methodologies to assess soil water erosion in vineyards have been identified: (i) experimental plot stations under simulated or natural rainfalls, (ii) erosion markers, (iii) models, (iv) the surface elevation change-based methods, (v) geochemical methods, and (vi) carbon stable isotopes. This works focuses on the use of plot stations under simulated rainfall and on the surface elevation change-based method.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rainfall simulation and Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry for the analysis of soil water erosion in Mediterranean vineyards

Prosdocimi

Burguet

Prima

et al. 2017

Science of The Total Environment

Self Cite

103

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Soil water erosion is a serious problem, especially in agricultural lands. Among these, vineyards deserve attention, because they constitute for the Mediterranean areas a type of land use affected by high soil losses. A significant problem related to the study of soil water erosion in these areas consists in the lack of a standardized procedure of collecting data and reporting results, mainly due to a variability among the measurement methods applied. Given this issue and the seriousness of soil water erosion in Mediterranean vineyards, this works aims to quantify the soil losses caused by simulated rainstorms, and compare them with each other depending on two different methodologies: (i) rainfall simulation and (ii) surface elevation change-based, relying on high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) derived from a photogrammetric technique (Structure-from-Motion or SfM). The experiments were carried out in a typical Mediterranean vineyard, located in eastern Spain, at very fine scales. SfM data were obtained from one reflex camera and a smartphone built-in camera. An index of sediment connectivity was also applied to evaluate the potential effect of connectivity within the plots. DEMs derived from the smartphone and the reflex camera were comparable with each other in terms of accuracy and capability of estimating soil loss. Furthermore, soil loss estimated with the surface elevation change-based method resulted to be Contents lists available at ScienceDirectScience of the Total Environment j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / s c i t o t e n v of the same order of magnitude of that one obtained with rainfall simulation, as long as the sediment connectivity within the plot was considered. High-resolution topography derived from SfM revealed to be essential in the sediment connectivity analysis and, therefore, in the estimation of eroded materials, when comparing them to those derived from the rainfall simulation methodology. The fact that smartphones built-in cameras could produce as much satisfying results as those derived from reflex cameras is a high value added for using SfM.

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Soil water erosion on Mediterranean vineyards: A review

Cited by 308 publications

References 155 publications

Estimating soil erosion risk and evaluating erosion control measures for soil conservation planning at Koga watershed in the highlands of Ethiopia

Estimating soil erosion risk and evaluating erosion control measures for soil conservation planning at Koga watershed in the highlands of Ethiopia

Estimation of the susceptibility of a road network to shallow landslides with the integration of the sediment connectivity

Rainfall simulation and Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry for the analysis of soil water erosion in Mediterranean vineyards

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