Soil degradation; in particular under anthropogenic activities such as agricultural practices or mining reduces the capacity of soils to provide services in quantity and quality leading to crop failure, desertification and reduction of food security and biodiversity. Soil rehabilitation on the other hand aims at improving soil functions and ecosystem services - mostly responsible for crop production and ecosystem health. Hence, soils are currently subjected to an impact never observed since agriculture revolution. The impact of humans on soil reached to a level that can be considered a forming factor - the 6th factor of soil formation. This session gathers studies investigating the impacts of human on pedogenesis. A special focus should be given to the attenuation or improvement of soil functions and ecosystem services as consequence of intensive management. Research focusing on soil degradation or rehabilitation in arid, semi-arid and Mediterranean environments are highlighted in this session as the effects of anthropogenic activities can be intensified by the challenges of prolonged periods of drought and intense and irregular rainfall. We especially acknowledge research linking agricultural practices to soil formation - to develop the theory of agropedogenesis.

Soil erosion and the lateral movement of sediment have a substantially effect on the terrestrial carbon budget. The detachment, transport and deposition of soil and associated carbon strongly regulate the storage of carbon in soils. Given the magnitude and the degree of uncertainty associated with the erosion-induced carbon changes, it is crucial to identify sinks and sources of carbon and its interplay with soil redistribution processes to develop and set up reliable soil carbon management strategies.
Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a fundamental determinant of soil fertility and affects the biological, chemical and physical properties of the soil contributing to its capability to improve soil quality and diminishing soil degradation. To control the loss of SOC by induced erosion efficiently and reduce its environmental impact, there is a critical need to quantify soil redistribution rates and investigate the mechanism of soil erosion processes and its effect on the movement and fate of SOC.
This session intend to present a cross-disciplinary approach to Soil Science research focuses on the quantification of erosion-induced changes on soil carbon storage across landscapes.

Soil erosion has been traditionally divided into sheet, rill, and gully erosion. Rills and gullies concentrate overland flow, leading to a significantly increased flow erosivity. These forms of concentrated flow erosion, both above and below ground, represent an important sediment source within watersheds and produce sizeable economic losses (e.g. reduced crop yields, reservoir sedimentation). Moreover, rills and gullies are effective links for transferring runoff, sediment and pollutants. In addition, channel erosion plays a key role in the development of badlands. Despite their relevance, the physical mechanisms that constitute concentrated flow erosion remain poorly understood.

This session aims to address this research gap and will focus on recent studies aiming to better understand the process of rill and gully erosion, with the ultimate aim of developing predictive tools and effective management strategies. As such we welcome contributions on: monitoring and measurement techniques; the factors and processes controlling rill, piping and gully erosion; modelling approaches; restoration and control; the role of piping, rills and gullies in hydrological and sediment connectivity; and rills, gullies and badland dynamics in a context of Global Change.

Structures and techniques aiming at controlling sediment transport-related or erosion-related issues are numerous and sometimes very old. Hillslope management and bioengineering, reforestation, and torrent control works using transverse structures, as check dams and more recently open check dams, are common all over the world to curtail soil erosion and torrential hazards. These actions may be launched for the control of sediment supply (i) to the stream fans and valley rivers for flood protection, (ii) to dam reservoirs for water storage, and basically, (iii) for the mere mountain soil conservation and agriculture protection. The profound objectives of each action are diverse and vary depending on the geomorphic context and local state of the sediment cascade, where the implementation takes place. The lack of sufficient understanding of soil erosion processes, sediment (dis)connectivity activation and torrential hazards propagation continues to make soil erosion prevention and torrent control complex topics with insufficient implementation criteria and long-term effect assessment methods. Consequently, some projects still experience disappointing results due to many different reasons, such as poor construction quality, inadequate location or lack of adequate design criteria. In addition, these actions induce secondary effects (e.g., block of the downstream transfer of water and sediments), which should be better controlled or possibly prevented. This EGU session aims at gathering the whole community interested in human actions on control works and soil conservation techniques at the waterhed scale. Any contributions to the understanding of soil erosion control and sediment transport management based on detailed field experiences, high-quality laboratory works, validated numerical models and effectiveness assessment methods are welcome. Using the knowledge gaps identified above as a starting point, the proposed EGU session wishes, for the third year, to join and share scientific and technical opinions from all around the world, related to the legacy effects of soil erosion control and (open) check-dam design criteria, highlighting the role of the complex interactions between ecological elements, geomorphic processes and engineering activities.

The quantification and understanding of hydrological, erosive, and biogeochemical processes in catchments are essential to the sustainable management of water and soil resources. Assessment of the environmental impact of economic activities in catchments should be based on the acquisition of experimental data to implement and/or to evaluate conservation practices at different scales. Simulation models are important tools to address environmental problems in a cost-effective way. This technology has to be be coalesced with coherent scientific assumptions and experimental data to minimize the degree of uncertainty involved in representing existing conditions and to provide for instrumental information about alternative sustainable scenarios.

In this session, the authors are encouraged to present new environmental challenges related with the use of models or innovative approaches to quantify hydrological and soil erosion approaches. In addition to classical modeling procedures such as evaluation and recognition of model structures, sensitivity analysis, calibration, validation and degree of uncertainty quantification; the authors are encouraged to present new conceptualizations and experiments to address current environmental problems facing society as well as all kinds of tools and techniques aimed at the conservation of water, soil and nutrients.

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.

Among the many mitigation measures available for reducing the risk to life related to landslides, early warning systems certainly constitute a significant option available to the authorities in charge of risk management and governance. Landslide early warning systems (LEWS) are non-structural risk mitigation measures applicable at different scales of analysis: slope and regional. Systems addressing single landslides at slope scale can be named local LEWS (Lo-LEWS), systems operating over wide areas at regional scale are referred to as territorial systems (Te-LEWSs). An initial key difference between Lo-LEWSs and Te-LEWSs is the knowledge “a priori” of the areas affected by future landsliding. When the location of future landslides is unknown and the area of interest extends beyond a single slope, only Te-LEWS can be employed. Conversely, Lo-LEWSs are typically adopted to cope with the risk related to one or more known well-identified landslides.

Independently by the scale of analysis, the structure of LEWS can be schematized as an interrelation of four main modules: setting, modelling, warning, response. However, the definition of the elements of these modules and the aims of the warnings/alerts issued considerably vary as a function of the scale at which the system is employed.

The session focuses on landslide early warning systems (LEWSs) at both regional and local scales. The session wishes to highlight operational approaches, original achievements and developments useful to operate reliable (efficient and effective) local and territorial LEWS. Moreover, the different schemes describing the structure of a LEWS available in literature clearly highlight the importance of both social and technical aspects in the design and management of such systems.

For the above-mentioned reasons, contributions addressing the following topics are welcome:
• rainfall thresholds definition;
• monitoring systems for early warning purposes;
• warning models for warning levels issuing;
• performance analysis of landslide warning models;
• communication strategies;
• emergency phase management;
• landslide risk perception.

Mountain environments host highly dynamical and widespread erosion, sedimentation, and weathering processes. These processes cover a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from glacial & periglacial erosion, mechanical & chemical weathering, rock fall, debris flows, landslides, to river aggradation & incision. These processes react to a wide spectrum of external and internal forcings, including permafrost retreat, strong precipitation events, climate change, earthquakes or sudden internal failure. Measuring the dynamical interplay of erosion, sedimentation as well as quantifying their rates and fluxes is an important part of source to sink research but it is highly challenging and often limited by difficult terrain. Furthermore, these dynamical processes can threaten important mountain infrastructures and need to be understood and quantified for a better societal and engineering preparation to the natural hazards they pose.

We welcome contributions investigating:
- sediment mobilization and deposition
- links between erosion, weathering, and the carbon cycle
- concepts of dynamics and connectivity of sediments and solutes
- quantification of erosion, sedimentation, and weathering fluxes in space and time
- sediment travel times and transport processes
- interaction of stabilizing and destabilizing processes on the slopes
We invite presentations that focus on conceptual, methodological, or modelling approaches or a combination of those in mountain environments and particularly encourage early career scientists to apply for this session.