Erosion - Attrition (Weathering), Bank Erosion, Base Level, Bioerosion, Bridge Scour, Cliffed Coast, Exfoliation Joint, Glacial (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 25. Chapters: Attrition (weathering), Bank erosion, Base level, Bioerosion, Bridge scour, Cliffed coast, Exfoliation joint, Glacial striation, Headward erosion, Longshore drift, Meander, Nivation, Plucking (glaciation), River anticlines, Surface exposure dating. Excerpt: Erosion is the process by which soil and rock are removed from the Earth's surface by exogenetic processes such as wind or water flow, and then transported and deposited in other locations. While erosion is a natural process, human activities have increased by 10-40 times the rate at which erosion is occurring globally. Excessive erosion causes problems such as desertification, decreases in agricultural productivity due to land degradation, sedimentation of waterways, and ecological collapse due to loss of the nutrient rich upper soil layers. Water and wind erosion are now the two primary causes of land degradation; combined, they are responsible for 84% of degraded acreage, making excessive erosion one of the most significant global environmental problems. Industrial agriculture, deforestation, roads, anthropogenic climate change and urban sprawl are amongst the most significant human activities in regard to their effect on stimulating erosion. However, there are many available alternative land use practices that can curtail or limit erosion, such as terrace-building, no-till agriculture, and revegetation of denuded soils. A hillside covered in rills and gullies due to erosion processes caused by rainfallThere are three primary types of erosion that occur as a direct result of rainfall-sheet erosion, rill erosion, and gully erosion. Sheet erosion is generally seen as the first and least severe stage in the soil erosion process, which is followed by rill erosion, and finally gully erosion (the most severe of the three). The impact of a falling raindrop creates...