Research Context
Accelerated soil erosion threatens ecosystem function, agricultural productivity, and water quality. Field-scale assessments for present and future conditions are necessary to guide conservation decisions.
Soil erosion in the United States: Present and future (2020–2050)
Method
The study applies a geospatial soil-erosion framework integrating climate pathways (CMIP6 SSP-RCP scenarios), land-cover information, and process-based modeling variables at fine spatial resolution. The Field Scale Soil Erosion Model (FSSLM) builds on a 30 m G2 erosion model, combining satellite land-use and land-cover data with long-term gauge precipitation records.
Key Insights
- The 2020 baseline gives an erosion rate of 2.32 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ under current agricultural conservation practices.
- Holding those practices constant, erosion rises by 8 % to 21 % by 2050 depending on the SSP-RCP combination — conservation practices materially change the outcome.
- Every scenario either intensifies extreme events or moves them: the extremes migrate from the southern United States toward the eastern and northeastern regions.
Abstract
Abstract as published, quoted from the arXiv preprint of this study (arXiv:2207.06579); the publisher exposes no machine-readable abstract.
Soil erosion is a significant threat to the environment and long-term land management around the world. Accelerated soil erosion by human activities inflicts extreme changes in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, which is not fully surveyed/predicted for the present and probable future at field-scales (30-m). Here, we estimate/predict soil erosion rates by water erosion, (sheet and rill erosion), using three alternative (2.6, 4.5, and 8.5) Shared Socioeconomic Pathway and Representative Concentration Pathway (SSP-RCP) scenarios across the contiguous United States. Field Scale Soil Erosion Model (FSSLM) estimations rely on a high resolution (30-m) G2 erosion model integrated by satellite- and imagery-based estimations of land use and land cover (LULC), gauge observations of long-term precipitation, and scenarios of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). The baseline model (2020) estimates soil erosion rates of 2.32 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ with current agricultural conservation practices (CPs). Future scenarios with current CPs indicate an increase between 8% to 21% under different combinations of SSP-RCP scenarios of climate and LULC changes. The soil erosion forecast for 2050 suggests that all the climate and LULC scenarios indicate either an increase in extreme events or a change in the spatial location of extremes largely from the southern to the eastern and northeastern regions of the United States.