EROSPLOP

 Who is the project aimed at

Land-use planners, public administrations and private companies interested in predicting the impact of future environmental changes on soil erosion. 

Project objective

To improve the understanding of soil erosion through an innovative multiscale and multidisciplinary approach. The project focuses on soil erosion on steep slopes using geomatic techniques (UAV, TLS), instrumental monitoring, physical experiments and integrated modelling. In addition, the impacts of future environmental changes on soil erosion are assessed.

The project will use several test sites in the central and eastern Pyrenees to configure the model. However, the model will also be applied to other Pyrenean catchments to ensure its transferability. Last but not least, the various results of this research will be evaluated with the stakeholders participating in the consortium in order to propose recommendations for land-use planning and erosion mitigation.

Project description

Soil erosion represents a major environmental threat to natural ecosystems, sustainability and agricultural productivity. Several recent studies have shown that soil erosion is an even more serious problem in Spain than in other countries due to its particular climate and environmental conditions. Furthermore, future changes in climate and land cover will have a strong influence on soil degradation. These changing conditions make reliable predictions of soil erosion difficult. Nevertheless, few studies have addressed the prediction of present and future soil erosion using a quantitative, physically based approach.

The EROSPLOP project focuses on soil erosion on steep slopes and operates at three different scales: talus slope, first-order catchment and regional scale. At these different scales, soil erosion volumes are measured using geomatic techniques, including digital photogrammetry based on unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial structure-from-motion (for the regional scale), and terrestrial laser scanning (for the catchment and talus slope scales). Detailed monitoring of changes in the soil surface will enable a comprehensive analysis of erosion mechanisms at the slope scale.

On the other hand, precise instrumental monitoring is carried out at the catchment scale at two test sites with different soil types (coarse-grained versus fine-grained soils), and at the slope scale, both in the large-scale experiment and in the laboratory. At the catchment scale, precipitation, runoff and sediment yield are measured, while additional data are collected at the slope scale, including soil moisture and temperature, rainfall energy and radiation, among other variables.

The monitoring data are interpreted alongside geomorphological observations to define a conceptual model. All the information is then incorporated into and analysed using existing soil erosion models and the new model developed during the project. This new multiscale model is conceived as a tool embedded in a spatially referenced database and driven by heuristic rules, enabling different analyses depending on the scale under consideration: deterministic (finite element method and material point method) at the slope scale, physically based stochastic at the regional scale, and mixed stochastic/deterministic or top-down at the catchment scale.

Finally, the new multiscale model is applied to assess the impacts of future environmental changes (climate change and land-use and land-cover changes) on soil erosion on steep slopes. Future climate conditions are obtained from existing regional climate models and specific scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5). In contrast, future land-cover conditions are modelled using existing geospatial modelling software. As a final result, the multiscale model quantifies sediment yield under future environmental conditions in selected regional catchments and produces soil erosion susceptibility maps.

The project will use several test sites in the central and eastern Pyrenees to configure the model. However, the model will also be applied to other Pyrenean catchments to ensure its transferability. Last but not least, the various results of this research will be evaluated with the stakeholders participating in the consortium in order to propose recommendations for land-use planning and erosion mitigation.

Project funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.