Status and Challenges of Monitoring Soil Erosion in Croplands of Arid Regions

Soil erosion is the greatest threat to soil health and soil ecosystem services globally. Several studies are reported in literature on monitoring and assessment of soil erosion in semi-arid and humid regions both at catchment scale and field level. However, soil erosion studies are rare from arid regions especially Indian arid region. It is learnt that a variety of methods have been used for monitoring of soil erosion and rates of soil erosion vary considerably for regional and global estimates according to the method used to derive them. This chapter aims at providing an overview of methods used for monitoring runoff and soil erosion from agricultural lands. Then it describes different scales ranging from micro-plot to field and catchment scale assessment of soil erosion from agricultural/arable land. Thereafter, different devices and methods used for measurement or estimation of soil erosion in the literature are explained. Furthermore, a case study is presented to demonstrate a step-by-step methodology for measurement of runoff and soil erosion from agricultural fields of an arid region of Gujarat, India and results are discussed. The case study revealed that the highest soil loss occurred from the field plots of cultivated fallow (108.03 kg ha yr) and unploughed fallow (78.95 kg ha yr). The best intercropping practice in reducing field-level soil erosion is found as green gram intercropped with sorghum and pearl millet, which checked erosion of fertile soil by 69–79% more effectively than the cultivated and unploughed fallow plots. Moreover, challenges and issues faced in regular monitoring of soil erosion in arid climate are discussed.