Soil erosion and feedbacks

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The mission of the working group “Soil erosion and feedbacks” (SoilEroFeed) is the assessment of soil erosion processes driven by wind, water, and anthropogenic activities as well as their general feedbacks on landscape functioning. For this strongly transdisciplinary goal we apply qualitative and quantitative approaches ranging from the detection of the processes and the assessment of their drivers and dynamics to numerical models and experimental field and laboratory simulations. A key issue of the working group is the integration of the different soil erosion processes on landscape scale. The research carried out in the light of expected future global changes finally helps to develop new innovative techniques and approaches to fight, cope with or mitigate negative effects of soil erosion especially in agricultural areas.

The working group focusses on the following main research topics

Interaction of soil erosion processes: wind-, splash, rill-interrill, gully, tillage, harvest (direct/ indirect)
integrated numeric modelling of the erosion processes
hindcasting historic events or reconstructing paleo-landscapes
long term erosion rates and extreme event impacts
assessment of landscape sensitivity, resistance, and resilience concerning soil erosion
scenario analysis considering climate and land use changes to identify future hotspots of soil erosion and general impacts on landscape functioning