Information
Success of soil conservation works in reducing soil erosion rates and sediment yields in central eastern Australia.
Level 1 General description
Purpose:
The purpose of this paper is to determine, from a review of the available information, whether soil conservation works reduce both on-site erosion rates and off-site sediment yields in central eastern Australia.
Methods (brief)
The published work on the effects of soil conservation works on reducing soil erosion rates and sediment yields in Australia was reviewed.
Three spatial scales were analysed:
(a) soil erosion rates on plots;
(b) sediment yields from small drainage basins (up to 100 ha in area); and
(c) sediment yields from large drainage basins.
Key findings (brief)
Soil conservation works undertaken on small drainage basins greatly reduced sediment yields by decreasing upland soil erosion rates. However, large decreases in upland soil erosion rates often led to reworking of downstream temporary sediment storages which often maintained high sediment loads on the main streams.
Soil conservation works are capable of greatly reducing runoff, soil-loss rates and sediment yields from small basins which are highly impacted by agriculture and/or erosion. However, the highly variable Australian rainfall and runoff means that large, infrequent storms dominate soil erosion and sediment transport.
Location
Headwaters of the southern tributaries of the Murray-Darling River in New South Wales.
Related studies
Edwards K. (1987). Runoff and soil loss studies in New South Wales. Soil Conservation Service of New South Wales Tech. Handbook no. 10.
Kinnell PIA. (1983). The effect of kinetic energy of excess rainfall on soil loss from non-vegetated plots. Australian Journal of Soil Research. 21: 445 – 453.
Rosewell CJ. (1993). Soil loss. Soil Conservation Service of NSW Tech. Handbook no. 11.
Zolotarev M & Rosewell CJ. (1993). Rainer (Rainfall erosivity and IFD Estimation). Soil Conservation Service of NSW, Sydney.
Level 2 Detail of experimental conditions (what might be found in a journal paper or project brief in Hydstra)
Project administration
Site identifier code: N/A
Principal investigator: Erskine WD, Saynor MJ
Principal data manager: N/A
Principal organizations: Department of conservation and natural resources, Victoria
Data custodian: Department of conservation and natural resources, Victoria
Key co-operators: N/A
Data access policy: Research has been published but base data is not archived
Planned pathway for data: completed study, no evidence of formal database records.
Data warehousing: for ongoing studies N/A
Planned data upload frequency: for ongoing studies N/A
Key references and sources of this data synthesis
These data summaries have been extracted from:
- Erskine WD & Saynor MJ. (1996). Success of soil conservation works in reducing soil erosion rates and sediment yields in central eastern Australia. Erosion and sediment yield: Global and Regional Perspectives (Proceedings of the Exeter Symposium July 1996). IAHS Publ. No. 236.
Keywords:
Soil conservation, runoff, soil loss