Erosion control is the practice of preventing or controlling wind or water erosion in agriculture, land development, coast, river banks and construction. Effective erosion controls handle surface runoff and are important techniques in preventing water pollution, soil erosion, wildlife habitat loss and human property loss.
Usage
Erosion controls are used in natural areas, agricultural settings or urban environments. In urban areas erosion controls are often part of
stormwater runoff management programs required by local governments. The controls often involve the creation of a physical barrier, such as vegetation or rock, to absorb some of the energy of the wind or water that is causing the erosion. They also involve building and maintaining
. On construction sites they are often implemented in conjunction with
such as
and
.
Bank erosion is a natural process: without it, River would not meander and change course. However, land management patterns that change the hydrograph and/or vegetation cover can act to increase or decrease channel migration rates. In many places, whether or not the banks are unstable due to human activities, people try to keep a river in a single place. This can be done for environmental reclamation or to prevent a river from changing course into land that is being used by people. One way that this is done is by placing riprap or Gabion along the bank.
Examples
Examples of erosion control methods include the following:
Mathematical modeling
Since the 1920s and 1930s
[Robert E. Horton. 1933] scientists have been creating mathematical models for understanding the mechanisms of soil erosion and resulting sediment
surface runoff, including an early paper by
Albert Einstein applying Baer's law.
[Albert Einstein. 1926] These models have addressed both gully and sheet erosion. Earliest models were a simple set of linked equations which could be employed by manual calculation. By the 1970s the models had expanded to complex
addressing nonpoint source pollution with thousands of lines of computer code.
[C. Michael Hogan, Leda Patmore, Gary Latshaw, Harry Seidman et al. 1973] The more complex models were able to address nuances in micrometeorology, soil particle size distributions and micro-terrain variation.
See also
Notes
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Albert Einstein. 1926. Die Ursache der Mäanderbildung der Flußläufe und des sogenannten Baerschen Gesetzes, Die Naturwissenschaften, 11, S. 223–224
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C. Michael Hogan, Leda Patmore, Gary Latshaw, Harry Seidman et al. 1973. of pesticide transport in the soil for five instrumented watersheds, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Southeast Water laboratory, Athens, Ga. by ESL Inc., Sunnyvale, California
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Robert E. Horton. 1933. The Horton Papers
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U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Washington, DC. "National Conservation Practice Standards." National Handbook of Conservation Practices. Accessed 2009-03-28.
External links
