Introduction
Many so-called new developments in soil erosion research are in fact “evolutionary” in character—they are built on research foundations established during past decades. We need look no further than Hugh Hammond Bennett’s (1939) Soil Conservation to realize that we stand on the shoulders of giants. However, the significance of concepts such as “connectivity” has changed as perspectives have shifted during the last 50 years, from the experimental plot and field to the catchment (Boardman et al. 2022). Also, increased technical expertise in computing, geographic information systems (GIS), and remote sensing has certainly opened new possibilities. In this short personal perspective, we aim to review new developments from a European viewpoint. We start by noting that soil erosion research in Europe is firmly rooted in geomorphology, in contrast to the mainly agronomic foundations of North American erosion research.
FIELD-BASED SURVEYS
In Europe, the importance of field-based surveys of erosion has been emphasized by the findings of a few regional-scale, long-term monitoring exercises, most recently that from the Swiss Midlands (Bircher et al. 2022). In this study, field-measured erosion rates for 203 arable fields over 10 years were compared with modeled predictions using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Mean mapped values were 0.77 t ha−1 y−1 (0.34 tn ac−1 yr−1), but modeled values were much higher: 6.20 t ha−1 y−1 (2.8 tn ac−1 …
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