Dan Borg and others Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology

Hans-Rudolf Bork1, Christine Dahlke1, Stefan Dreibrodt1, Karl Geldmacher2, Yong Li3, Andreas Mieth1, Bernd Tschochner2, and Tom Vanwalleghem4 - 1Kiel, Germany, 2Potsdam, Germany, 3Beijing, China, 4Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: The long term quantitative consequences of human activities on the development and the destruction of soils are widely unknown. The complex long term land surface – soil formation – soil erosion – climate - land use – landscape structure - interactions were investigated and quantified in China, on Easter Island, in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, in South Africa, Belgium, and Germany. No soil erosion occurred in the areas under investigation during Holocene before the beginning of farming and intensive grazing. Woodland protected soils and avoided soil erosion during the Holocene

	in the central part of the Loess plateau in northern China and in the areas covered with loess in Germany before the first clearings in the Neolithic age,
	in Germany after Roman Times until early Medieval Times,
	on Easter Island (Chile) before the clearing of a palm forest which was used as garden before 1300 CE,
	before the arrival of the first settlers on Robinson Crusoe Island (Chile) in 1591 CE, at Inxu Drift (Transkei, RSA),
	in the Pacific Northwest of the USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and
	in southern China until the political campaign of the “Great Leap Forward”.

Only the destruction of the vegetation in different periods and cultures enabled soil erosion. Extreme precipitation events cut in deep gully systems. About a third of the total soil erosion during the last 1,500 years in Germany was caused by two rare precipitation events during the first half of the 14th century. Intensive gullying resulted in the abandonment of individual fields. Excluding the tremendous effects of rare and extreme events soil erosion rates increased dramatically in all investigation areas that were used agriculturally during the 20th century as a result of the reallocation of land (increase of field sizes), of the introduction of new crops and new crop sequences (resulting in longer periods with no protection of the soil by vegetation), of new equipment techniques (machines which are compacting soils and which enable the use of steep slopes) and political decisions (“The Native Title Act” of 1923 in RSA, the “Great Leap Forward” in 1959 in China). Soil fertility was reduced dramatically as a result of past soil erosion. The heterogeneous recent soil cover is namely a result of various direct and indirect human interferences.

Send mail to rensch@buffalo.edu with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2003 Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium 2005 Last modified: February 12, 2008

Send mail to rensch@buffalo.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2003 Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium 2005
Last modified: February 12, 2008