Soil Erosion in Europe (Boardman/Soil Erosion in Europe) || Soil Losses due to Crop Harvesting in Europe

✍ Scribed by Boardman, John; Poesen, Jean

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 975 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0470859113
• DOI: 10.1002/0470859202.ch44

✦ Synopsis

Growing crops may cause, in addition to water, wind and tillage erosion, significant soil losses at harvesting time. During the harvest, earth adhering to the crop, soil clods and rock fragments are removed from the field together with crops such as fodder and sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), carrot (Daucus carota L.), chicory (Cichorium intybus L.), potato (Solanum tuberosum L.), leek (Allium porrum L.) and black salsify (Scorzonera hispanica L.). This process of soil erosion is termed as soil losses due to crop harvesting (SLCH).

Although SLCH is often not included in soil erosion and sediment budget studies, some published data indicate that SLCH can be of the same order of magnitude as soil losses caused by water and tillage erosion (e.g., . SLCH may lead to considerable on-site loss of nutrients and valuable topsoil. Off-site, SLCH has economic and environmental consequences attributed to soil transport, cleaning of the crop and storage and disposal of the soil .

This chapter first focuses on methods to measure SLCH, SLCH definitions and the significance of SLCH. An overview of the factors determining SLCH is then given and, finally, spatial and temporal variations of SLCH in Europe are considered.