A strategic plan for future USDA Agricultural Research Service erosion research and model development

Soil erosion is a natural process, and the erosion potential of a site is the result of complex interactions among soil, vegetation, topographic position, land use and management, and climate. Soil erosion occurs when aeolian and hydrologic processes exceed a soil’s inherent resistance to these forces (figures 1 and 2). Soil erosion was recognized as a significant problem at both local and national scales in the United States in the 1920s; by 1935 soil erosion was considered a national disaster, covering over one-half of the country (Sampson and Weyl 1918; Weaver 1935), and is still a concern with 21% of the western United States degraded and vulnerable to accelerated soil erosion (Herrick et al. 2010; Weltz et al. 2014a; Duniway et al. 2019). In 1995, it was estimated that 4 × 10⁹ t (4.4 × 10⁹ tn) of soil was lost from US cropland (Pimentel et al. 1995). The most vulnerable areas for soil movement and thus erosion occur where annual precipitation is 100 to 400 mm y^–1 (4 to 16 in yr^–1), which limits soil moisture available to sustain plant growth. Anthropogenic-driven dust emissions have dramatically increased across …