Effect of vegetation removal on soil erosion and bank stability in agricultural drainage ditches

Sammanfattning

Maintenance of agricultural drainage ditches can be difficult to optimize if farmers have no guidelines on where to target their maintenance efforts. A main concern is whether ditch banks will experience soil erosion or mass movement (failure). In order to help identify sites that are more likely to experience soil erosion and/or mass movement, soil susceptibility to detachment was assessed in this study using a cohesive strength meter (CSM) and measurements of shear strength in unsaturated direct shear tests. The results showed that soil roots play an important role in stabilizing ditch banks against mass movement and in reducing the rate of soil detachment. A positive stabilizing effect was detected by CSM and confirmed by shear strength measurements. The conclusion is that native vegetation should be maintained on ditch banks, instead of being removed during maintenance work as is currently the case

Nyckelord

bank erosion; roots density; soil shear strength; ditch status evaluation; ditch management

Publicerad i

Land
2020, volym: 9, nummer: 11, artikelnummer: 441

SLU författare

• Avilés, Daniel

  • Institutionen för mark och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    
  • Universidad mayor de San Simón (UMSS)

• Wesström, Ingrid

  • Institutionen för mark och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Joel, Abraham

  • Institutionen för mark och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen (SDG)

SDG2 Ingen hunger
SDG12 Hållbar konsumtion och produktion
SDG15 Ekosystem och biologisk mångfald

UKÄ forskningsämne

Miljö- och naturvårdsvetenskap
Markvetenskap
Miljöledning

Publikationens identifierare

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/land9110441

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/109487