The history and assessment of effectiveness of soil erosion control measures deployed in Russia

AbstractResearch activities aimed at design and application of soil conservation measures for reduction of soil losses from cultivated fields started in Russia in the last quarter of the 19th century. A network of "zonal agrofor-estry melioration experimental stations" was organized in the different landscape zones of Russia in the first half of the 20th century. The main task of the experiments was to develop effective soil conservation measures for Russian climatic,soil and land use conditions. The most widespread and large-scale introduction of coun-termeasures to cope with soil erosion by water and wind into agricultural practice supported by serious governmental investments took place during the Soviet Union period after the Second World War. After the Soviet Union collapse in 1991 ,general deterioration of the agricultural economy sector and the absence of investments resulted in cessation of organized soil conservation measures application at the nation-wide level. However, some of the long-term erosion control measures such as forest shelter belts, artificial slope terracing, water diversion dams above formerly active gully heads survived until the present. In the case study of sediment redistribution within the small cultivated catchment presented in this paper an attempt was made to evaluate average annual erosion rates on arable slopes with and without soil conservation measures for two time intervals. It has been found that application of conservation measures on cultivated slopes within the experimental part of the case study catchment has led to a decrease of average soil loss rates by at least 2. 5 2. 8 times. The figures obtained are in good agreement with previously published results of direct monitoring of snowmelt erosion rates, reporting approximately a 3 -fold decrease of average snowmelt erosion rates in the experimental sub-catchment compared to a traditionally cultivated control sub-catchment. A substantial decrease of soil erosion rates on arable slopes has been equally reflected in a corresponding decrease of aggradation rates in the main valley bottom and tributaries