Mr. German Kust, Institute of Geography RAS, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia. Global Symposium on Soil Erosion (GSER19), 15 - 17 May 2019 at FAO HQ.

1. Soil erosion in Russia: state,
dynamics, and forecast
German Kust, Valentin Golosov, Valeriy Demidov,
Konstantin Kulik, Yuri Sukhanovskii
Russian Academy of Science,
Moscow Lomonosov State University
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2. State of soil erosion in Russia
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3. 3
State of soil erosion in Russia
South of the European part South of Western Siberia
Desertification assessment

4. State of soil erosion in Russia
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5. State of soil erosion in Russia
• Soil erosion is the most common process of land
degradation in Russia. Sheet, rill and gully erosion
during snowmelt (March-April) and rainstorm
(May-September) seasons are the main factors for
soil degradation of agricultural lands. In the
southern regions wind erosion is important
additional factor of soil degradation
• The total area of agricultural land eroded, deflated
and potentially prone to deflation and water
erosion is over 50%, with some tendency to
increase in the past few years
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6. State of soil erosion in Russia
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7. Dynamics of soil erosion in Russia
Water
erosion
Wind
erosion
Joint water
and wind
erosion
European part 13493.2 4146.6 351.5
Asian part 3290.7 7303.2 533.4
Total 16783.9 11449.8 884.9
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The area of regions prone to desertification is constantly
expanding.
Table: Area of soil erosion as the cause of desertification in
Russian drylands, thousand hectares

8. Dynamics of soil erosion in Russia
• The annual water erosion from the cultivated land is evaluated as
0.56 billion tons. The flow of water and sediments from the
slopes in the agricultural zone supplies up to 80-90% of
phosphorus, nitrogen and pesticides to rivers and water bodies.
• According to expert estimates soil fertility decreased by 30-60%
only due to water erosion of arable land.
• From 80 to 90% of ravines in the agricultural zone of Russia have
the anthropogenic origin due to improper cultivation of arable
lands. Here there are more than 2 million of individual ravines,
with a total length of about 300 thousand km and an area of
about 6 million hectares.
• The rate of gullying in the past run up to 10-15 thousand hectares
per year.
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9. Dynamics of soil erosion in Russia
• Among those agricultural lands prone to wind erosion, 76% are
characterized by a low degree, and 24% by moderate and strong
deflation.
• About 50% of agricultural lands having certain risk of wind
erosion in southern Siberia, although the southern European
territory of Russia and the North Caucasus are characterized by
the strongest deflation. Here, in open plain areas, the intensity
of deflation reaches 50-100 tons/ha per year or even more, in
some areas not protected by forest belts, a decrease in soil
thickness reaches 30-35 cm. On sandy and sandy loam soils in
the south of Western Siberia in some spots the deflation also
may be higher than 50 tons/ha per year, however, due to the
widespread use of flat-cut tillage, the common development of
deflation is unlikely here.
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10. Dynamics and forecast: modeling tools
The main difference between the Russian approaches from the
well-known universal models of rain erosion USLE (Universal Soil
Loss Equation) and WEPP (Water Erosion Prediction Project) is that
they are adapted for Russian soil forming and climatic conditions,
among them the most important are those correctly taking into
account the results of soil flushing out during the snowmelt period
(Demidov, 2016), and different land use scenarios during crop
rotations (Sukhanovsky, 2013).
Verification of complex models that describe not only water
erosion, but also soil formation and transformation of organic
matter on Typical Chernozems shows that the erosion rate over the
past 200 years has been much higher than the rate of soil formation
(Sukhanovsky et al. 2011).
Despite the possibility of using various models, the solution of this
problem is complicated by significant socio-economic reasons that
have drastically changed the general trend of erosion development
in the last 30-40 years.
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11. Dynamics and forecast: modeling
The modelling of the total annual soil
losses in the territory of the Russian Plain
(Golosov et al., 2018) showed it reduced
from 436 Mt in 1960-1980 to 245 Mt in
1991-2012, mainly due to the decrease in
cropland area. The highest reduction was
identified for the forest zone, where soil
losses reduced by 75% and the mean
annual erosion rate decreased from 7,3 to
4,1 ton/ha yr. The increasing frequency of
heavy rain-storms in the southern part of
steppe zone, on the contrary, led to the
negligible intensification of soil erosion
rate.
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12. Dynamics and forecast: modeling
• The density of active gully
decreased considerably during
last decade. On the Russian
Plain the trend of reduction of
gully head retreat is confirmed
by the results of long-term
monitoring in the south of the
forest zone (Medvedeva et al.,
2018). The main reason for this
is likely the decrease in soil
freezing depths, which results
in a significant reduction in
surface runoff during
snowmelt.
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13. Conclusion
• The studies of soil erosion in different regions of Russia
shows that the process is multidirectional: the area is
increasing in many regions but the rate of erosion
decreases in general.
• The studies of climate change scenarios indicate that
rainfall intensities in Russia may increase in the region,
while it remains unclear how a further warming of air
temperatures can affect snowmelt-related runoff.
• It is more likely that sheet, rill and gully erosion rates
will increase mostly in the agricultural area of the
Russian Plain in whatever climate change trends. The
gradual restoration of arable land areas in the steppe
and notably in forest-steppe zone during last years are
additional important factor of possible increase of soil
loss and land degradation in nearest future.
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