Erosion is a natural process that gradually alters Earth’s landscape, such as erosion channels created by wave action cutting through sea cliffs or sand dunes on beaches and deserts. Climate change further intensifies this phenomenon by increasing rainfall intensity and prolonging wildfire seasons among other factors.
Erosion refers to the movement of loose rock and soil from one place to another, creating various types of erosion such as:
Physical Erosion
Erosion refers to the movement of sediment–sand, silt and rock fragments–by water or wind. Deposition involves depositing material on landforms. Erosion acts as the opposite process: material moves away instead.
Tectonic activity can dramatically alter rates and patterns of erosion. If a mountain range is uplifted or depressed, changing its slope and thus speeding up erosion processes.
Weathering plays an integral part in erosion. This involves breaking apart of rocks through factors like heating and cooling cycles, frost or crystal wedging or chemical reactions such as iron rusting.
Weathering renders rocks susceptible to being easily eroded by water, wind and glaciers; human activities, like deforestation can hasten this process by eliminating plants that hold soil together and reduce plant cover. Erosion can also be hazardous when caused by moving water; in such instances engineers use structures called gabions to slow boulder movement near homes and highways located along cliff edges.
Chemical Erosion
Chemical weathering (also referred to as chemical erosion) occurs when rocks’ surface minerals are altered through exposure to air, water or other agents such as oxygen or chemicals such as chlorine. Iron minerals in rocks may oxidize when exposed to oxygen while water can alter mineral structures or even dissolve them entirely to form clays.
Physical and chemical erosion coexist in tandem. Wind, flowing water, ice and gravity transport eroded material away from its point of degradation (like hillside degradation) towards sites for deposition or sedimentation – known as deposition or sedimentation respectively.
Erosion can be especially destructive when topsoil is stripped away, as this soil loss reduces a landform’s capacity to support plants and crops while diminishing its capacity to absorb moisture, potentially leading to flooding. Soil erosion may even wash into lakes, rivers and streams where it contributes to algae blooms which lower quality water, decreasing oxygen supply to lakes as well as killing fish populations.
Vegetation Erosion
Erosion occurs more rapidly when there is little or no groundcover vegetation present. Roots from grasses, crops and trees help bind together the soil, reducing displacement while slowing water movement; their roots also help stabilize slopes and minimize landslides.
Erosion can occur as the result of intensive agriculture, deforestation, road construction and poor land management practices. Acid rain, wind erosion and climate change all compound this issue further.
Erosion is a major threat to agricultural land. Severe erosion reduces crop production while harming ecosystems above and below ground, harming surface water quality as sediment from farm fields flows directly into rivers and waterways and poses a threat of toxic algal blooms in surface waters. Furthermore, farming expansion into regions with harsher weather conditions such as high winds or heavy rain is only compounding this issue further.
Water Erosion
Water erosion is a natural process, but can be hastened by climate change and human activity. Climate changes include increased rainstorm frequency and intensity that wash away more soil; people may accelerate it by clearing away vegetation that holds back erosion–this is especially common among farm fields where trees and grass must be cut back for crop production.
Water can be particularly erosive when flowing over uncultivated land, such as farm fields left bare after harvesting. Water erosion can cause runoff and lead to the formation of landforms such as rills and gullies.
Physical erosion can be caused by glaciers, wind, waves and water flow. Water erosion often results when rock and soil particles combine forces such as gravity or friction between rocks; movements in tectonic plates can also have an impact on rates and distributions of erosion. Erosion transports sediment away from one area into another area creating new soil or rock deposits.