Land use and soil conservation strategies for potentially highly erodible soils of central-eastern Nigeria

In areas susceptible to erosion, there is the need for a comprehensive soil conservation programme so as to be able to prevent catastrophic soil erosion problems. The absence of such a programme in central eastern Nigeria, that has a total land area of 20 000 km², necessitated the drawing up of a soil conservation strategy for the area. The aim was to provide information for better land-use planning and proper environmental and soil management. To achieve this, topographic, soil and landform maps of the area at the scale of 1:50 000 were used to delineate into slope land units, viz: 0–4 per cent, <4 per cent, drainage basins and headwaters. These slope units and estimated soil erosion hazard units using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) were employed to form a general purpose land classification based on the USDA land capability classification and FAO framework on land evaluation.The soil loss tolerance of the area falls between 1·16 and 1·30 Mg ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹, while the erosion hazard units are considered generally suitable for the various land utilization types, with a number of limitations the main ones being erosion and waterlogging. The soil conservation measures proposed involved the application of bioenvironmental processes in the area and appropriate watershed management. The techniques proposed are those based on low input technology, affordable by rural farmers. It is concluded that these soil conservation measures will be adequate for sustainable agricultural production in the area. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.