Soil Erosion in the Alpine Area: Risk Assessment and Climate Change

Objective of the research is to define the magnitude of the Actual Soil Erosion Risk in the alpine area and linked it with a perspective of medium long terms in relation to climate change. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was applied to the whole alpine space. It allowed to produce, with a spatial resolution of 100 m, the map of actual soil erosion and two further maps defining soil erosion rates in IPCC A2 and B2 scenarios. This analysis was carried out by means of the dataset the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) of Trieste made us available. It provides daily rainfall values for the years 1960 - 1990 and for the IPCC A2 and B2 scenario 2070 - 2100. From a comparison between actual erosion and soil losses in A2 and B2 scenarios it comes out that our model does not show relevant raises in erosion rates. However, low variations in soil losses rates are observable. In particular, B2 scenario shows a growth of low entity of soil losses over a significant part of the alpine space. In A2 scenario a clear distinction between northern and southern Alps comes out. Northern part should experience a low reduction of soil erosion, whilst in southern areas a rise of soil losses should take place.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard