Acceleration of Soil Erosion by Different Land Uses in Arid Lands above 10 Be Natural Background Rates: Case Study in the Sonoran Desert, USA

Ara Jeong, Ronald I. Dorn, Yeong-Bae Seong and Byung-Yong Yu
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Ara Jeong: Department of Geography Education, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
Ronald I. Dorn: School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
Yeong-Bae Seong: Department of Geography Education, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
Byung-Yong Yu: Laboratory of Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 02792, Korea

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-28

Abstract: Land use changes often lead to soil erosion, land degradation, and environmental deterioration. However, little is known about just how much humans accelerate erosion compared to natural background rates in non-agricultural settings, despite its importance to knowing the magnitude of soil degradation. The lack of understanding of anthropogenic acceleration is especially true for arid regions. Thus, we used 10 Be catchment averaged denudation rates (CADRs) to obtain natural rates of soil erosion in and around the Phoenix metropolitan region, Arizona, United States. We then measured the acceleration of soil erosion by grazing, wildfire, and urban construction by comparing CADRs to erosion rates for the same watersheds, finding that: (i) grazing sometimes can increase sediment yields by up to 2.3–2.6x, (ii) human-set wildfires increased sediment yields by up to 9.7–10.4x, (iii) after some post-fire vegetation recovered, sediment yield was then up to 4.2–4.5x the background yield, (iv) construction increased sediment yields by up to 5.0–5.6x, and (v) the sealing of urban surfaces led to one-tenth to one-half of the background sediment yields. The acceleration of erosion at the urban–rural interface in arid lands highlights the need for sustainable management of arid-region soils.

Keywords: 10 Be denudation rates; arid lands; grazing; land use changes; land degradation; natural background rate; soil erosion; wildfire; urban construction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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