Soil Erosion at Multiple Scales: Principles and Methods for Assessing Causes and Impacts

Approaches to research on the causes and impacts of soil erosion have changed significantly over recent years. Whereas biophysical research traditionally utilized small carefully managed erosion plots, models and other techniques are now available to study impacts of broad scale management on the hydrology and water quality of catchments and even river basins. Research tools have also been developed for social and economic analysis at the household, farm and community levels. This book reviews the latest developments in such soil erosion studies. These are considered on the matrix of scales, from plot to river basin, and from farm to national policy. Some chapters review background issues while others consider specific methods. The book is based on papers presented at a workshop held in Indonesia in November 1997, and is written by authors from Europe, North America, Australia and Southeast Asia as well as from several of the CGIAR centres.

A framework for the economic assessment of soil erosion and soil conservation; the economics of soil degradation - from national policy to farmers's fields; bioeconomic modelling for analyzing soils conservation policy issues; a multiscale approach for on-farm erosion research - application to Northern Thailand highlands; building the smallholder into successful natural resource management at the watershed scale; a microeconomic analysis of adoption of contour hedgerows in the Philippine uplands; investigating constraints to the adoption of recommended soil conservation technology in the Philippines; CIAT's strategic research for sustainable land management on the steep hillsides of Latin America; measuring erosion as a component of sustainability; agronomic consequences of soil erosion; catchment approach to combating soil erosion in Asia - the managing soil erosion consortium; latest developments in the design of hydrological studies of watersheds; off-site impacts and nutrient dynamics in catchment research; on-site nutrients depletion - an effect and a cause of soil erosion; erosion and sedimentation as multiscale, fractal processes - implications for models, experiments and the real world; soil erosion research in Indonesia - past experience and future direction; dynamic process modelling of hydrology and soil erosion; the measurement of soil erosion; the use of GIS and remote sensing techniques to predict erosion in the Nepal Middle Hills; predicting erosion and sediment yield at the catchment scale; modelling catchment erosion, sediment and nutrient transport in large basins; designing and implementing outcome-oriented soil conservation research.