Environmental impact of soil erosion under different cover and management systems

Runoff, soil loss and physical chemical composition of surface soil, runoff water and eroded sediment were measured for three erosive rainstorms of the 1988 Autumn-Winter season, on clay soil slopes (Typic Chromoxeret) under different cover and management systems in a locality of Sicily.Four years reconsolidated natural grass-sod (Avena fatua and Lolium tumulentum), natural grass-sod with implanted forage shrubs (Atriplex halimus) and natural grass-rod afforested with Pine trees (Pinus halepensis), reduced significantly runoff and soil loss in comparison with tilled fallow following four years durum wheat cultivation.While differences in runoff and soil loss between reconsolidated systems were not significant, the higher biomass yield (Stringi et al. 1991) and the better soil cover (Chisci et al. 1991) of the Atriplex system, increased O.M. content of the soil and prevented soil erosion under very intense rainstroms of the semiarid Mediterranean area.The comparison of textural and aggregate grain-size composition of surface soil and sediment confirmed that physico-mechanical composition of sediment detached and transported by over-land flow on clayey soils is better estimated by pseudo-textural grain-size composition of surface soil (Chisci et al. 1989) than from textural composition.Soil loss amounts, and O.M., N and P enrichment ratios, combined in a specifically devised Environmental Impact Index (EI), demonstrated the excellent environmental protection value of reconsolidation of arable soils. However, Pinus system was somewhat less efficient than Atriplex and good natural grass-sod systems.