To prevent gully erosion in farm fields, erosion control structures such as berms or grassed waterways can be constructed. These structures protect soil by reducing the erosive force of flowing water.

Surface cover and runoff. Surface cover is a major factor to control erosion because it reduces the impact of raindrops falling on bare soils and wind removing soil particles. It also reduces the speed of water flowing over the land. Erosion risk is significantly reduced when there is more than 30% soil cover.

Erosion involved three processes: detachment (from the ground), transportation (via water or wind), and deposition. The deposition is often in places we don’t want the soil such as streams, lakes, reservoirs, or deltas.

Liquid water is the major agent of erosion on Earth. Rain, rivers, floods, lakes, and the ocean carry away bits of soil and sand and slowly wash away the sediment. Rainfall produces four types of soil erosion: splash erosion, sheet erosion, rill erosion, and gully erosion.

Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, game reserves, or nature reserves.

The Dragon’s Blood Tree used to grow all over Socotra, however its range has been significantly reduced as a result of goats’ overgrazing. The goats eat the young trees and seeds before they have a chance to fully develop and destroy the already fragile land, rendering it too weak to support new plant growth.

In this page you can discover 8 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for overgrazing, like: over-grazing, undergrazing, under-grazing, deforestation, afforestation, over-exploitation, grazing and salination.

Overgrazing is one of the several causes for desertification, in arid areas the vegetation is necessary because the soil needs it to stay moist and fertile.

Human activities that contribute to desertification include the expansion and intensive use of agricultural lands, poor irrigation practices, deforestation, and overgrazing. These unsustainable land uses place enormous pressure on the land by altering its soil chemistry and hydrology.

Its major effect is to drastically reduce the pore space through which water moves into and through the soil, thereby reducing infiltration and percola- tion, increasing surface runoff, and encour- aging erosion. Figure 3.

Desertification is a global issue, with serious implications worldwide for biodiversity, eco-safety, poverty eradication, socio-economic stability and sustainable development. Drylands are already fragile. As they become degraded, the impact on people, livestock and environment can be devastating.

Conclusion: Main findings. Desertification poses one of the greatest environmental challenges today and constitutes a major barrier to meeting basic human needs in drylands. Desertification is land degradation that affects biological productivity as well as the livelihoods of millions of people.

“In many countries, desertification means a decline in soil fertility, a reduction in vegetation cover – especially grass cover – and more invasive shrub species. Practically speaking, the consequences of this are less available land for grazing, and less productive soils.

The commission’s Joint Research Centre found that a total area half of the size of the European Union (1.61 million square miles, or 4.18 million square kilometers) is degraded annually, with Africa and Asia being the most affected.

Currently, the Gobi desert is the fastest moving desert on Earth; according to some researchers, the Gobi Desert swallows up over 3,370 square kilometres (1,300 square miles) of land annually.

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