Global Soil Erosion Map to Help Save Soil

In a first of its kind effort, researchers from all over the world have quantified soil erosion due to rainfall collecting data from 63 countries to prepare a ‘rainfall erosivity ’ map of the world.

Essential for assessing the magnitude of soil erosion by water, calculating the risk of floods and preventing natural disasters researchers of the study used rainfall data from 3,625 precipitation stations and created the Global Rainfall Erosivity Database (GloREDa), a database of erosivity factor for each station based on rainfall duration, magnitude and intensity. Quantifying the damage caused by rainfall on the soil helps in understanding the magnitude of the damage and mitigating it.

The map indicates that the highest erosivity values are located in Southeast Asia, Central Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

The lowest erosivity was found in Siberia, West Asia, Northern Africa, Canada and Northern Europe. The researchers observed that spatial pattern of erosivity values correspond to the extreme rainfall events observed in those areas.

India is a major producer of a wide range of agricultural products; it is the second largest supplier of wheat and rice in the world. While a major credit for this distinction goes to suitable climatic conditions and good monsoon rains, the role of fertile soil that India has in abundance is important too. Because of soil erosion, however, the agriculture sector is facing a threat in the coming years.

“When the water of the flooded Brahmaputra flows downstream in Bengal, it disrupts the fishing reservoirs of the region. The local fishermen, thus, lose their means of livelihood”, says Dr. Nabansu Chattopadhyay of the Indian Meteorological Department, Pune and a co-author of the study.

The study, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, is a joint effort of 31 scientists from over 20 countries all over the world.

Erosivity is the tendency of rainfall to cause soil erosion. It is the combined effect of the duration of rainfall, its magnitude and intensity.

Displacement of soil from its original place is called erosion. Rainfall, rapidly flowing water as in the case of streams and rivers, wind or even mass movement of land, like landslides or avalanches can cause erosion. Rainfall alone causes more than 50% of soil erosion  world over. Erosion takes away the nutrient rich topsoil from the erosion site, and in the long run, leads to desertification.

Read full article: Research Matters

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Taxonomy

• Soil
• Water Management
• Soil Management
• Coastal Erosion
• Stormwater Runoff