The latest reference document of the United Nations (UN) on the status of global soil resources (FAO & ITPS, The Status of the World’s Soil Resources 2015) stresses that "…the majority of the world’s soil resources are in only fair, poor or very poor condition" and soil erosion is a major threat to soil worldwide. Soil erosion is the detachment and transport of soil particles or aggregates by action of wind, water, and gravity and is responsible for land degradation processes that end in Desertification. High erosion rates results in non-sustainable agriculture production and the need to find expensive solutions via costly governmental policies.

This session will show the State-of-the-Art of the soil erosion processes in agriculture, forest and urban areas. Our main objective is to assess the process but also to find solutions that may help farmers, policy makers and to support the ongoing research activities of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Global Soil Partnership (GSP) on soil national erosion, i.e., the new bottom-up UN Global Soil Erosion Map (GSERmap).