Factors Of Soil Erosion – What Are These Factors?

Factors Of Soil Erosion – What Are These Factors?

FACTORS OF SOIL EROSION – In this topic, we are going to learn and identify the following factors of soil erosion.

FACTORS OF SOIL EROSION
Image from: European Commission – Europa EU

Erosion is an action or process which involves the removing of soil, rock, or dissolved material from one area from the crust or the other.

Factors

There are 6 known main factors of this process:

  • Water
    • It is the primary leading cause of erosion. It comes in many forms Among those were:
      • Rain and Overland Flow
        • Rain is one form of water erosion. Overland flow or surface runoff is the aftermath of rain. It results in four kinds:
          • Splash erosion
          • Sheet erosion
          • Rill erosion
          • Gully erosion
      • Rivers and Streams
        • Caused by continued water flow along a linear feature. It has two kinds:
          • Bank erosion
          • Thermal erosion
      • Coastal Erosion
        • Also known as shoreline erosion, it occurs on both exposed and sheltered coasts.
      • Floods
        • The extreme form of water erosion. large volumes of rapidly rushing water could cause kolks or vortexes, which could cause extreme local erosion.
  • Chemical
    • Loss of matter in a landscape. The matter is in the form of solutes.
  • Glaciers
    • also known as ice erosion, they erode into three ways:
      • Abrasion/scouring
      • Plucking
      • Ice thrusting
  • Wind
    • One of the major causes of erosion and also one of the sources of land degradation, evaporation, desertification, harmful airborne dust, and crop damage. It has two forms:
      • Deflation
      • Abrasion
  • Mass Movement
    • Refers to the downward and outward movement of rock and sediments on a sloped surface because of the force of gravity.

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