The effect of cultivation method on erosion in agricultural catchments: integrating AHP in GIS environments

Abstract

The cultivation method used in agricultural catchments can have a great effect on erosion processes; as such, determining the effects on form and degree is crucial. One commonly held hypothesis is that a shift to minimum tillage methods should reduce the rate of erosion. Here, we examine the effect of cultivation methods and environmental conditions on soil erosion risks in field crops and orchards in an agricultural catchment in northern Israel. The examination was conducted using AHP (analytic hierarchy process) and GIS (geographic information system)‐based computer simulations. Field validation of the simulations was conducted during the 2009–2010 winter season. The spatially explicit data on cultivation method, combined with environmental and climatic data, yielded an explanation of most of the variation in erosion risks in the catchment (kappa =0·93). Of the 10 criteria examined, the cultivation method and slope were the two variables with the greatest effect on increased soil erosion. Furthermore, soil loss risks were reduced substantially as a result of substituting conventional tillage with reduced tillage; substituting reduced tillage with conservation tillage; and changing the tillage direction to perpendicular to the direction of the slope. These results are reasonable in light of the modifications that mechanical tools cause in the soil structure, as observed in the penetration depth and the aggregate stability measurements used in this study. Despite the difficulty in collecting spatially explicit data on cultivation methods, we believe that it is of utmost importance to use such data to study erosion risks in agricultural catchments. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Paleo-Anthropocene and the Genesis of the Current Landscape of Israel

“…Steffen et al, 2004;2015) including global warming, an upsurge in extreme flood events and the creation of alternative water cycles (Grassel, 2006;Macklin et al, 2012), as well as the extinction of species (Leakey & Lewin, 1996), which was coined the Sixth Extinction by Kolbert (2014). Soil erosion has increased to a level considered a human security hazard for the 21 st century (Svoray & Bensaid, 2010;Svoray et al, 2015;Amundson et al, 2015), and we are witnesses to the creation of a new geological formation 'plastiglomerate', comprising molten plastic (Corcoran et al, 2014).…”

Using a landform evolution model to study ephemeral gullying in agricultural fields: the effects of rainfall patterns on ephemeral gully dynamics

“…contributing drainage area, gully length and gradient (Vandaele et al , ; Svoray and Ben‐Said, ; Svoray et al , ). Anthropogenic factors, such as land use change, cultivation method and roads, were also shown to be an important contributor to EG dynamics (Svoray et al , ). In order for an EG to occur, an incision at the soil surface must take place, which is typically triggered by land use change (Munoz‐Robles et al , ), extreme rainfall events (Valentin et al , ) or a disturbance caused by agricultural machinery.…”