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Other climatic factors such as average temperature and temperature range may also affect erosion, via their effects on vegetation and soil properties. In general, given similar vegetation and ecosystems, areas with more precipitation (especially high-intensity rainfall), more wind, or more storms are expected to have more erosion.
Coastal erosion may be caused by hydraulic action, abrasion, impact and corrosion by wind and water, and other forces, natural or unnatural. [3] On non-rocky coasts, coastal erosion results in rock formations in areas where the coastline contains rock layers or fracture zones with varying resistance to erosion.
Dobbingstone Burn, Scotland—This photo illustrates two different types of erosion affecting the same place. Valley erosion is occurring due to the flow of the stream, and the boulders and stones (and much of the soil) that are lying on the edges are glacial till that was left behind as ice age glaciers flowed over the terrain.
Environmental factors such as temperature, atmospheric pressure, humidity, elevation, wind, the speed of light at higher elevations if using lasers or time of flight measurements, instrument drift, [26] chemical erosion, and for cosmogenic isotopes, climate and snow or glacier coverage. [31]
Human activities can affect the discharge of water and sediment from a river to the coastal environment in many ways. Deforestation and agriculture, as well as urbanization can increase the erosion of a river basin by as much as an order of magnitude. Freshly exposed soil is much less likely to resist erosion by rainfall or moving water ...
where R is the rainfall erosivity factor, K is the soil erodibility, [3] [4] L and S are topographic factors representing length and slope, and C and P are cropping management factors. Other factors such as the stone content (referred as stoniness), which acts as protection against soil erosion, are very significant in Mediterranean countries.
Though it is a natural process, it can be accelerated rapidly by human factors including land use changes such as timber harvest, mining, agriculture, and road and dam construction. The rate of incision is a function of basal shear-stress. Shear stress is increased by factors such as sediment in the water, which increase its density. [1]
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is a widely used mathematical model that describes soil erosion processes. [1]Erosion models play critical roles in soil and water resource conservation and nonpoint source pollution assessments, including: sediment load assessment and inventory, conservation planning and design for sediment control, and for the advancement of scientific understanding.