Abstract
Soil erosion occurs when the rate of removal of soil by water and/or wind exceeds the rate of soil formation. Soil formation is generally a very slow process with rates ranging around 1 cm/ 100–400 years. This makes about 0.1–1.3 t/ha.In areas with intensive land use or deforestation, erosion may be enhanced by human activities, yet we should bear in mind that erosion in general is a natural process, that has always been taking place on earth’s surface. To differentiate between natural erosion and erosion induced by human activities, we call the former background erosion. It is almost in equilibrium with soil formation (<1.0 t/h/a) in plain areas and a little bit higher in mountain regions. The harm caused by human induced erosion is that it seriously disturbs this balance.
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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Mirsal, I.A. (2004). Soil Degradation. In: Soil Pollution. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05400-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-05400-0_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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