Orals

Soil is the key element in the Earth System for controlling hydrological, biological, erosional and geochemical cycles. Moreover, the soils are the source of food and fiber services and resources for human societies. This key role that soils play makes soil conservation necessary to achieve a sustainable world. Soil erosion is a key threat because agriculture, deforestation, grazing, fire, road construction and mining accelerate soil erosion rates. Soil erosion control can be achieved at the pedon scale and slope scale where the detachment of sediments can be controlled with conservation tillage, catch crops, weeds, mulches or geotextiles, afforestation, check-dams and so on. Generally, the protection of the soil on the slopes needs complementary strategies on the channels as the low sediment concentration of the runoff increases the overland flow efficiency and results in rill and gully incision. In order to avoid the incision of channels and high erosion rates on slopes, management strategies must to be applied. Improving vegetation cover and biodiversity may help to avoid soil degradation. This session will show examples of successful and unsuccessful management actions to rehabilitate and restore degraded ecosystems taking into account soil and vegetation interfaces. We will pay special attention to the strategies and the techniques for restoring arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Thus, this session proposes an exchange of knowledge, ideas and new techniques and strategies that are used in arid and semi-arid ecosystems worldwide. We encourage you to submit papers from your own research experience, review papers, and your experience on research and applied projects in order to establish future guidelines for soil erosion and plant conservation.