Preface

Soil erosion affects a large part of the Earth surface, and it represents one of the most relevant environmental problems worldwide. Intense land degradation processes that destroyed civilizations in the past are still going on at present.

Accelerated soil erosion is one of the main soil threats, as the natural balance between soil formation and loss may be seriously compromised, leading to desertification and permanent loss of fertility and protective function. Soil erosion is not only related to agricultural activities and farming practices, but also to land management in general.

In non-agricultural lands (e.g. forests, rangelands etc.) erosion plays a primary role in landscape evolution and landform development, affecting the availability of nutrients, the soil physical properties and therefore the vegetation cover. Moreover, erosion may lead to desertification phenomena interesting as waste areas.

The land management in areas affected by soil erosion is a relevant issue for landscape and ecosystems preservation. In literature, a wide discussion on erosion assessment methods, erosion effects and mitigation techniques is available, and the effects of erosion on both agricultural and non-agricultural land are widely treated. Among the major problems about soil erosion assessment and mitigation, there is the spatial and time scale at which erosion occurs.

In this book we collected a series of papers on erosion, not focusing on agronomic implications, but on a variety of other relevant aspects of the erosion phenomena.

The book is divided into three sections: i) various implications of land management in arid and semiarid ecosystems; ii) erosion modeling and experimental studies; iii) other applications (e.g. geoscience, engineering).

In the section on arid and semiarid ecosystems different environments are presented, from Mediterranean basin (Greece, Spain, Portugal) to Central and South America (Brazil, Mexico), and different aspects of soil erosion are treated.

Christopoulou examined the effects of deforestation in Greece, due to fire and land management, indicating some guidelines for forest management, fire prevention and soil conservation. Wildfires effects are widely discussed in the paper by Badía et al.,

#### XII Preface

focusing on restoration and recovery strategies in the post-fire soil and vegetation evolution. Nunes treated the relationship between erosion and land cover in marginal areas in Portugal, suggesting guidelines for land management and erosion prevention. Vásquez-Méndez et al. examined the role of native vegetation cover and pioneer species on erosion mitigation and soil protection, observing a favourable effect on runoff reduction due to the canopy effect. Marco da Silva et al., examined the natural susceptibility of Brazilian soil to erosion using the rainfall, soil and topography information of the USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation), obtaining a GIS-based map for the assessment of the natural potential for erosion, i.e. the intrinsic susceptibility of a territory to soil loss by water erosion processes.

A wide section of the book focuses on experimental studies and models. Plot scale experiments are presented together with slope management sustainable techniques using hydro-seeding techniques and environmental friendly materials.

Le Gouée et al. present a model for the assessment of soil erosion hazard in relation to climate change scenarios.

A final section deals with other erosion-related issues involving engineering and building techniques (e.g. earth dams and earth structures), and sedimentary record analysis for land use change study.

The book covers a wide range of erosion-related themes from a variety of points of view (assessment, modeling, mitigation, best practices etc.), and represents an exhaustive review on the causes and effects of accelerated soil erosion that need to be taken into account in order to effectively monitor and assess erosion phenomena.

#### **Danilo Godone, PhD**

Turin University, Faculty of Agriculture, Deiafa Department NATRISK - Research Centre on Natural Risks in Mountain and Hilly Environments Grugliasco (TO), Italy
