Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Geomorphology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph

Invited review article

The history of human-induced soil erosion: Geomorphic legacies,

early descriptions and research, and the development of soil
conservation—A global synopsis
Markus Dotterweich ⁎
Institute of Geography, Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz, Johann-Joachim-Becherweg 21, 55099 Mainz, Germany
Institute of Archaeology, University of Cologne, Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne, Germany

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a global synopsis about the geomorphic evidence of soil erosion in humid and semihumid
Received 20 December 2012 areas since the beginning of agriculture. Historical documents, starting from ancient records to data from the
Received in revised form 6 July 2013 mid-twentieth century and numerous literature reviews form an extensive assortment of examples that show
Accepted 10 July 2013
how soil erosion has been perceived previously by scholars, land surveyors, farmers, land owners, researchers,
Available online 23 July 2013
and policy makers. Examples have been selected from ancient Greek and Roman Times and from central Europe,
Keywords:
southern Africa, North America, the Chinese Loess Plateau, Australia, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Further-
Human-induced soil erosion history more, a comprehensive collection on the development of soil erosion research and soil conservation has been
Historical descriptions provided, with a particular focus on Germany and the USA.
Early soil conservation strategies Geomorphic evidence shows that most of the agriculturally used slopes in the Old and New Worlds had already
Soil erosion research history been affected by soil erosion in earlier, prehistoric times. Early descriptions of soil erosion are often very vague.
Human–environment interaction With regard to the Roman Times, geomorphic evidence shows seemingly opposing results, ranging from massive
Adaption devastation to landscapes remaining stable for centuries. Unfortunately, historical documentation is lacking. In
the following centuries, historical records become more frequent and more precise and observations on extreme
soil erosion events are prominent. Sometimes they can be clearly linked to geomorphic evidence in the field. The
advent of professional soil conservation took place in the late eighteenth century. The first extensive essay on soil
conservation known to the Western world was published in Germany in 1815. The rise of professional soil con-
servation occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Soil remediation and flood prevention
programs were initiated, but the long-term success of these actions remains controversial. In recent years, in-
creasing interest is to recover any traditional knowledge of soil management in order to incorporate it into mod-
ern soil conservation strategies. The study shows that local and regional variations in natural settings, cultural
traditions, and socioeconomic conditions played a major role for the dynamics and the rates of soil erosion on
a long-term perspective. Geomorphic evidence and historical sources can often complement each other, but
there should be also an awareness of new pitfalls when using them together.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction America and Meso-America (James, 2013). As a result, the biodiversity,

matter, and energy fluxes have been strongly transformed by human
Since the beginning of agriculture in the Neolithic, many phases of impact (Bouma et al., 1998; Messerli et al., 2000; Huntley et al., 2002;
agricultural expansions but also regressions occurred in connection Kaplan et al., 2009). This long history of anthropogenic activity had sig-
with associated land clearances and reforestation in different areas nificant implications on environmental change at different scales, from
worldwide (Williams, 2003; Ellis et al., 2013). Early agriculture emerged the regional hydrology (Benito et al., 2008; Macklin et al., 2010) and
independently in many diverse regions on most of the continents at var- sediment flux (Hoffmann et al., 2007; Dotterweich, 2008) to perhaps
ious times during the Holocene. It spread out from cultural centers like global climate patterns (Kaplan et al., 2010).
Mesopotamia in the Middle East, the Yangtze and Huang He in China, The removal of the natural vegetation and subsequent substitution
the Indus and Ganges–Brahmaputra Rivers in South Asia, the New Guin- with crop cultivation created areas of bare or sparsely vegetated earth
ea Highlands, Egypt in northern Africa, the Andes highlands in South vulnerable to soil erosion. The use of hand-held hoes by ancient small-
scale trade farmers often kept the surface in a rough condition still fa-
vorable for water infiltration. With the later introduction of iron tools
⁎ Institute of Geography, Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz, Johann-Joachim-
and regular tillage operations on larger fields, soil surfaces were
Becherweg 21, 55099 Mainz, Germany. Tel.: +49 6131 3924880; fax: +49 6131 39 26861. smoothed and compacted, encouraging surface runoff and soil erosion
E-mail address: [email protected]. on hillslopes. Various forms of degraded landscapes caused by sheet

0169-555X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2013.07.021
2 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

erosion (interill), rill erosion, gullying, and piping processes became allow characterization of sediment fluxes in coupled slope-channel sys-
manifested in many regions under different climate conditions and tems at a high spatial and temporal resolution (Dotterweich, 2008).
with diverse land use histories (Poesen et al., 2003; Lang and Bork, This has been demonstrated for instance in western Europe (Bertran,
2006; Dotterweich, 2008; García-Ruiz, 2010; James, 2013). The eroded 2004; Larue, 2005; Lespez et al., 2008; Brown, 2009), the Caucasian re-
material formed new sedimentary structures including colluvial de- gion (Borisov et al., 2012), Meso-America (Beach et al., 2006b), the USA
posits on footslopes and in depressions, as well as alluvial deposits, (Barnhardt, 1988; Waters and Haynes, 2001), China (Rosen, 2008; Wu
fans, and floodplains that later became fluvial terraces (Macklin et al., et al., 2008), Mongolia (Lehmkuhl et al., 2011), or Australia (Prosser
2006; Hoffmann et al., 2007; García-Ruiz, 2010). Hence, humans be- and Winchester, 1996; Beavis et al., 1999; Whitford et al., 2010).
came a crucial agent of geomorphological change, and anthropogenic The long-term feedback of such erosion and sedimentation process-
soil erosion has surpassed previous natural denudation rates (Messerli es to an ecosystem, including socioeconomic aspects and human behav-
et al., 2000; Wilkinson, 2005). However, natural soil erosion also oc- ior, has also received attention in geomorphology and soil science
curred as an effect of a decline in vegetation caused by climatic shifts recently (Bork et al., 1998; Bintliff, 2002; Butzer, 2005; Dotterweich,
to dryer conditions with episodic extreme precipitation events. Such 2008). For example, historical studies in Germany show that during
changes are particularly evident for example in the northern part of the first half of the fourteenth century CE, many villages had been aban-
the Loess Plateau in China (Li et al., 2010) or in some areas of the doned as an ultimate consequence of a combination of sociocultural
Mediterranean (Piccarreta et al., 2012). They are often difficult to processes, crop failures, and soil degradation caused by soil erosion
distinguish from human-induced processes, particularly if both occur (Dotterweich, 2008). The price of food had increased significantly for
simultaneously. several consecutive years in the first half of the fourteenth century CE
Lal (2003) estimated that the area of land affected by soil erosion because of shortages, which had been a consequence of soil degradation
through water today is about 1094 million ha at a global scale, of and economic mismanagement (Fraser, 2010). These unfavorable
which 751 million ha are severely eroded. Pimentel et al. (1995) socioeconomic, nutritional, and health situations might have prepared
assessed that about 12 million ha of arable land are destroyed and aban- the ground for starvation and diseases. In the eighteenth to early nine-
doned annually because of nonsustainable farming practices. To create teenth centuries CE, soil erosion and crop failures led to major migra-
larger farms and fields, farmers have removed the grassy edges, shelter- tions overseas. Soil erosion appears to have been one factor in a
belts, and hedgerows that had protected the soil from erosion during complex causality spiral leading to socioeconomic instability and land
the previous 50 years. Soil erosion depletes soil fertility, degrades use changes (Dotterweich and Dreibrodt, 2011).
soil structure, reduces the effective rooting depth, and disturbs the From a historical perspective, several studies and overviews
foundations of all natural processes. The decline or vanishing of numer- about soil management knowledge in historical times have been
ous civilizations around the world has been closely linked with the deg- published (Winiwarter, 2000; McNeill and Winiwarter, 2004;
radation of their resources, particularly deforestation, accelerated soil McNeill and Winiwarter, 2006; Winiwarter, 2006b,c; Brevik and
erosion, and the decline of crop yields (Marsh, 1864; Lowdermilk, Hartemink, 2010; Winiwarter, 2010; Emberger, 2012). They show
1953; Brown, 1981; Dregne, 1982; Mieth and Bork, 2003; Diamond, that long before the introduction of scientific research, subsistence
2006; Montgomery, 2007). Such processes can also occur separately farmers had a good practical knowledge of how to manage soils sus-
or in combination with other factors like urbanization, epidemics, rebel- tainably. Soil conservation strategies have often been embedded in
lion or war (Williams, 2003). However, continuous physical degrada- many traditional soil management systems. For example, agricultur-
tion of a landscape and the decline of local and regional resources will al terracing is one of the main techniques to prevent soil erosion that
ultimately decrease socioecological resilience. Such fragile systems are had emerged already 4000 years ago (maybe over 6000 years) to
highly vulnerable to small internal and external impacts. In the context control soil erosion (McNeill and Winiwarter, 2004; Sandor, 2006).
of soil erosion, repeated moderate or single extreme events forced by However, knowing whether a particular terrace was primarily creat-
climate change may have affected the productivity of the land so ed to protect the soil, for irrigation or for other purposes is often
much that agricultural usage had to be ceased. On a local to regional difficult.
scale, this may occur surprisingly fast. Especially punctuated events Historical studies that focus on human-induced soil erosion by water
may trigger catastrophic changes, forcing premature land use abandon- are also available. For example, on a global scale, Lowdermilk (1953),
ment (Dotterweich and Dreibrodt, 2011). On the other hand, humans Dale and Carter (1955), McNeill (2001), McNeill and Winiwarter
created strategies to prevent further degradation or to mitigate environ- (2004), and Montgomery (2007) have summarized the history of past
mental problems. Hence, an awareness of the impact of land use on soil soil erosion and soil management over the last millennia. Mosley
characteristics in the past and an understanding of the long-term pro- (2010) gave a general overview about soil management, soil degrada-
cesses of soil erosion are essential for a better insight into long-term tion, and soil protection strategies in different cultures and periods,
human–environment interactions in general (Dearing et al., 2006). and Brevik and Hartemink (2010) presented examples on the percep-
Moreover, the past holds suggestions and ideas about sustainable strat- tion of soil erosion in historical times in the context of a precise under-
egies to protect and restore the soil. It is therefore crucial to evaluate standing of soil and the birth and development of soil science.
current soil conservation strategies under changing climatic conditions Additionally, numerous case studies and regional overviews refer to his-
and increasing land use pressure. torical descriptions on past soil erosion. Several of them will be cited
During the last few decades, the potential to use erosional landforms later in this paper. Some of the literature and textbooks about the re-
and soil-sediment structures for the reconstruction of past soil erosion search history of soil science, geomorphology, or soil conservation also
and to use colluviation in order to assess human impact and climate provide summaries on historical soil erosion and soil conservation
change has been recognized by an increasing number of studies. The (e.g., Ehrenberg, 1915; Giesecke, 1929; Bennett, 1939; Jacks and
majority of these studies focus on alluvial sediments on floodplains in Whyte, 1939; Mickey, 1945; Mückenhausen, 1949; Faulkner, 1953;
different environmental settings (e.g., Trimble, 1974; Knox, 2006; Howard, 1953; Dale and Carter, 1955; Richter and Sperling, 1976; EI-
Leigh and Webb, 2006; Leigh, 2008; Walter and Merritts, 2008; Swaify et al., 1982; Krupenikov, 1992; Pimentel, 1993; Hudson, 1995;
Macklin et al., 2010; Notebaert and Verstraeten, 2010; Hoffmann et al., Yaalon and Berkowicz, 1997; Richter, 1998; Troeh et al., 2004;
2011). These studies show processes and timings of geomorphologically Warkentin, 2006; Orme, 2013).
significant floods, river terrace aggradation, and channel change as a con- Studies focusing on the perception of soil erosion in historical times
sequence of land use and climate change. However, while river sediments in the context of geomorphic evidence are still rare. For example,
reflect regional trends in land use changes, human-induced erosional Showers (2006a) presented an extensive case study on the perception
landforms and soil sediment structures along slopes and gully forms of soil erosion since the early nineteenth century, including the
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 3

development of different conservation practices in Lesotho; and Mather 2. Europe

(1982) discussed the changing perception of soil erosion in New
Zealand. However, the analysis of contemporary descriptions and ob- 2.1. Geomorphic evidence and causes of past soil erosion in Europe
servations on soil erosion is problematic. The sources need very critical
analysis because they were often created in the context of personal in- The anthropogenic transformation of European landscapes varies
terests or political issues instead of being based on scientific facts widely for different regions, and the widespread occurrence of past
(Showers, 2005; Lane, 2009). In addition, it is often unclear if the writer soil erosion has been examined. In the area of Mediterranean Europe,
has credibility and if the description documents a genuine observation land use has significantly modified the landscapes directly and indirect-
of a uniquely disturbed site or the wider conditions accurately. Fre- ly since the Neolithic (Glacken, 1976; McNeill, 1992; Shipley and
quently they describe extreme events that may be exaggerated while Salmon, 1996; Brandt and Thornes, 2002; Grove and Rackham, 2003;
the more subtle and continuous processes of sheet wash are neglected. Hughes, 2011), and research on the effects of past land use on the
The philosophical background and the level of knowledge of the person environment and on soil erosion has a long tradition (Judson, 1963;
producing the source have to be considered and whether the writers' Vita-Finzi, 1969; Hughes and Thirgood, 1982; Bintliff, 2002; Butzer,
document observed events, created narratives, or simply presented 2005; Dusar et al., 2011). Mediterranean environments are particularly
vague assumptions. Also, the description of the areas and periods are prone to soil erosion because of high rainfall intensities, alternation of
often imprecise and linkages to geomorphic evidence need careful con- wet and dry periods, low average annual precipitation, the fragility of
sideration. Finally, documentary records about soil erosion are not com- many soils (low organic matter content, poor nutrient content), the pres-
mon and often are deeply buried in archived files and rarely indexed ence of steep slopes, and the long history of landscape transformation,
with respect to soil erosion. Consequently, the spatial–temporal linkage including deforestation, forest fires, frequent land use changes, and culti-
between geomorphic evidence and historical descriptions is often very vation in extreme topographic and climatic conditions (Wainwright and
difficult and requires extensive research. Thornes, 2004; García-Ruiz, 2010; García-Ruiz et al., 2013). Most studies
Hence, this paper gives an overview about the current knowledge on assume that soil erosion started or accelerated after the removal of natu-
human-induced soil erosion by water in humid and semihumid areas ral woodlands since at least the Bronze Age. Based on geomorphological,
since the beginning of agriculture. The data has been derived from geo- pedological, paleoecological, and geoarcheological studies, important
morphological and geoarcheological evidence like erosional forms and phases of soil erosion have been detected for the Bronze Age and/or
surfaces as well as colluvial, alluvial, and lacustrine sediments in Europe, the Classical period, for example in Greece (van Andel et al., 1990;
Africa, America, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Histori- Lespez, 2003; Fuchs et al., 2004; Bintliff, 2005), Cyprus (Fall et al.,
cal descriptions, essays, reports, rules, poems, figures, and other sources 2012), Turkey (Brückner et al., 2005), Italy (Marchetti, 2002; Eppes
about observed soil erosion processes, eroded landscapes, or soil protec- et al., 2008; Piccarreta et al., 2011, 2012; Pelle et al., 2013), southwestern
tion strategies will be presented to provide examples on how contem- France (Bertran, 2004), and Spain (Cerdà, 2008; García-Ruiz, 2010).
porary travelers, farmers, land owners, land surveyors, researchers, Grove and Rackham (2003, p. 311), however, argued against past land
and policy makers may have perceived soil erosion from the middle of use by ancient civilizations having been the main cause for soil erosion
the first millennium BCE until the mid-twentieth century CE. In this con- because the chronology of alluvial sediments does not regularly corre-
text, the paper also summarizes examples on the early developments of spond with the rise or decline of past land use. Instead, episodes of ab-
soil conservation. Depending on the previous research and because of normal weather conditions and local deluges may be contributory
the availability of historical records or their dearth, the presented cita- factors. However, the causes of soil erosion in the Mediterranean land-
tions encompass areas or sites particularly in central Europe, ancient scape are very complex and only individual multicausal explanations
Greece and Rome, southern Africa (Lesotho and Malawi), China (Loess are appropriate to elucidate landscape changes (Bintliff, 2002).
Plateau), and eastern North America. In contrast to the Mediterranean, soil erosion north of the Alps is
The presented material is based upon studies from many additional- more strongly associated with land use in the more humid parts of
ly cited authors and the reader is also referred to these works for ex- Europe (e.g., Stehlík, 1981; Starkel, 1987; Bell, 1992; Dearing, 1994;
panded discussions in the research areas they address. Owing to the Howard et al., 2003; Lang and Bork, 2006). For central Europe, several
limitations of a journal-length paper, most of the historical records are comprehensive overviews combining studies on hillslope erosion, gully
presented in the original language and translated in the online supple- erosion, and floodplain development have been published in Bork et al.
ment as excerpts only. As far as possible, the mentioned locations (1998), Lang and Bork (2006), Hoffmann et al. (2007), Dotterweich
have been given in Fig. 1 and as Google Earth placemarks (pm) in the (2008), Dreibrodt et al. (2010), or Notebaert and Verstraeten (2010).
supplementary materials. For example in Germany, the observed variability of soil erosion in

Fig. 1. Location of selected case studies that are mentioned in historical records (red) or which show geomorphic evidence (blue) on past soil erosion and soil conservation (cf. Google place
marks in the online supplements).
4 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

small catchments reflects, to a large extent, the varying intensity of management practices had a positive effect causing a decline of soil ero-
population pressure and agricultural land use. Already the manipulation sion in the fifteenth century. However, the limited cultural knowledge of
of forest vegetation by fire through sedentary Mesolithic hunter and changing and rapidly fluctuating environmental conditions hindered ap-
gatherer groups may have created open areas and enabled intensive propriate regulation of grazing on a long-term time scale (Simpson et al.,
soil erosion at a local scale (Dotterweich et al., in press-a). The effects 2001; McGovern et al., 2007). Today, a large proportion of the formerly
of agriculture are illustrated by the pronounced increase of soil erosion, usable grazing areas in Iceland are severely eroded (Arnalds et al., 2001).
particularly at the onset of and during the Neolithic period (ca. 5500– The most common geomorphic legacies revealing attempts to pre-
2200 BCE in southern and central Germany). Further peaks occurred per- vent soil erosion on hillslopes in Europe are terraces that were formed
haps at the end of the Bronze Age (~1000 BCE) and at the end of the by tillage or construction. They are very common throughout Europe's
Roman times (~200/300 CE). Distinctively low levels in soil erosion farmland areas and particularly impressive in the case of vineyards
have been detected for the early Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1600 BCE), the (Petit et al., 2012). Some terraces in Mediterranean Europe have proba-
Migration Period (around 400/500–700 CE), and early Middle Ages (ca. bly been constructed as early as the Bronze Age (Grove and Rackham,
700–1000 BCE) (Dotterweich, 2008). Seemingly, centennial-scale cli- 2003, p. 112). A recent review about their properties, development,
mate change affected the observed variability by modifying the thresh- best management practices, and conservation of terraced soils in Medi-
old conditions for erosion. The most remarkable phase of human- terranean Europe has been presented by Stanchi et al. (2012).
induced soil erosion took place in the first half of the fourteenth century
CE, a phase of climate deterioration with increasingly frequent extreme 2.2. Historical descriptions of soil erosion in ancient Greece
precipitation events and very intensive land use (Fig. 2). The second
well-known intense soil erosion phase with severe gullying devel- The ancient Greek philosopher−scientists were excellent observers
oped in the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries CE (Fig. 2). of nature and had already gained a clear understanding of soils (Brevik
Historical records document extreme precipitation events during and Hartemink, 2010). The first descriptions that refer to the planting
these two phases, implying a strong influence of climatic extremes of olive and fig trees in the region of Attica (pm 2-1) date back to the
on geomorphological processes. However, certain phases of the record sixth century BCE. Plutarch, a Greek historian, wrote the history of the
remain unexplained. For example, within the Roman Provinces, lawmaker Solon who gave instructions on the planting of trees on the
geomorphic indications suggesting low intensities of soil erosion hillsides of Attica around 75 CE (Plutarch—Solon 23,6. 24,1; cited in
can be found at sites with clear proof of intensive land use while Perrin, 1914, cf. excerpt in Suppl. 1.1). For the same time and area, Dio
at other sites with little evidence of relentless land use, often outside Chrysostom mentions in his discourses (written in the first century CE)
of the Roman Empire, high rates of soil erosion were detected that during the leadership of Peisistratus (who ruled in Athens for sever-
(Dotterweich and Dreibrodt, 2011). Regarding the latter, continuous al decades until his death in 527 BCE) people stayed on the land and be-
soil erosion did not appear to be too high at the respective localities. came farmers. Peisistratus also gave the order to reclaim bare land by
Instead, the occurrence of single erosion events seems to have been planting olive trees (Dio Chrysostom orat 25,2, cited in Cohoon, 1939,
the dominant cause (Dotterweich and Dreibrodt, 2011). However, the 326f.; cf. excerpt in Suppl. 1.2). According to these descriptions Attica
last phase of accelerated soil erosion has taken place since the mid- was already devoid of woodland and possibly highly degraded by soil
nineteenth century. Sheet erosion was at a low intensity until the erosion in the mid-first century BCE. However, it is speculative if Solon
mid-twentieth century. Since then, the introduction of mechanized ag- or Peisistratus perceived soil erosion and if their orders were declared
riculture and the enlargement of fields triggered increased runoff and to prevent further degradation.
soil erosion once more. Today, many areas that were highly affected About 100 years later, the first detailed description about soil ero-
by hillslope erosion or gullying in the past are under forest and stabi- sion was given by Plato, who lived 427 to 347 BCE. He describes the pro-
lized (Dotterweich, 2008). cesses and effects of land use and soil erosion in the historic area of the
In the more marginal areas of northern Europe past soil erosion has Attica peninsula in his Critias (cf. Suppl. 1.3). However, this image of the
also had dramatic effects. In Iceland for example, where occupation degraded landscape of Attica is striking and has often been cited as an
began in 874 CE, soils became very vulnerable to erosion after defores- early perception of environmental degradation. McNeill (1992, p. 72)
tation and intensive grazing. Regulations on preventing overgrazing assumes that Plato apparently had Hymettus (pm 2-2) in mind, which
were already in place from around 1200 CE onward, and adaptive soil was covered in garrigue back then and still is now. Commentators

Fig. 2. Soil erosion and land use change in central Europe since 800 CE (adapted from Bork et al., 1998).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 5

remarking on the Classical age tend to interpret this description as an the soil that washes down from their summits, or even valley lands that
exaggeration, and it is not clear if it is history, mythology, or poetry have been formed by the soil deposits of rivers and floods, are especially
(Williams, 2003, p. 96). In addition, the translation and its interpretation suited for vineyards […] (Book III. xi. 8, cited in Forster and Heffner,
have been criticized because they are influenced by contemporary 1941, vol. I, pp. 304f.).
thoughts on erosion rather than interpreted in the context of the time Another indication pointing to an awareness of soil erosion during
it was written (Rackham, 1996; Grove and Rackham, 2003, p. 288). Roman Times could be derived from contemporary jurisprudence
However, the Greeks did not test theories or conduct experiments, (Milde, 1950; Fischer, 1996; Jaillette and Merola, 2008). As early as
and Greek agriculturists never developed techniques to prevent soil 451/450 BCE, the law of the Twelve Tables constituted that the owner
erosion (Brevik and Hartemink, 2010). Originally, the Greeks were pas- of a property is responsible for damage on a neighboring property
toral people and they used the lowlands for grazing while the uplands caused by rainwater runoff (Crawford, 1996, Tabula VII, 8, pp. 673ff.).
were covered with woodland (Zangger, 1992). With the population in- The Twelve Tables formed the heart of the legal system of the early
creasing, they started to expand cultivation from the productive valley Roman Republic, which was still dominated by peasant structures at
soils to the hillsides (Troeh et al., 2004). In the Bronze Age, soil erosion that time. The problems of damage through rainwater and runoff
became a serious problem in ancient Greece. The eroded material was were also discussed by several Roman scholars and jurists like Cicero,
transported downhill and accumulated on footslopes and floodplains Trebatius, or Quintus Mucius in the following centuries (Griffin et al.,
or built up deltas (Zangger, 1992; Bintliff, 2005). More than 1 m of soil 2002, p. 61ff.). The historical importance of this problem also became
was washed downslope from the surface of extensively used areas, evident in the jurisprudence of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, a great collection
and in some places the bedrock became exposed. Also, severe gullying of Roman law. The Digesta (or Pandectae) is a compilation of juristic lit-
took place and the footslopes were covered with unproductive erosion erature from the middle of the first century BCE to around 230 CE
debris (Troeh et al., 2004). Today, the plains are filled with fertile alluvi- commissioned by the emperor Justinian I between 530 and 533 CE
um often 5–10 m thick while most Greek mountains are barren—with (Mommsen et al., 1985). Particularly, the “actio aque pluviae arcendae”,
little or no soil cover left. In very remote areas of Greece, some places which also refers to the Twelve Tables, is very extensive and addresses
still have been more or less continuously under forest and barely affect- runoff on farmland properties and the subsequent damage to neighbor-
ed by agriculture. In these areas, mature soils similar to a Terra Rossa, ing land (Digest 39.3.1, cited in Mommsen et al., 1985, cf. Suppl. 1.6).
which is usually 20–100 cm thick, cover the limestone upland and pro- The Digest conveys a very detailed definition on runoff loaded with sed-
vide a fertile soil (Zangger, 1992). According to these findings we can iments (e.g. […] body of water is regarded as being swollen by rain if
suggest that the “bare and treeless” situation at the time of Solon and it changes color when it increases in quantity (Digest 39.3.1.16, cf.
Peisistratus as well as the description from Plato were true. The latter Suppl. 1.6)). It discusses the accelerated generation of runoff caused
describes the already heavily degraded environment of the first half of by man-made constructions or land management (e.g. dripping from
the first millennium BCE (which had been caused by deforestation eaves, ditches, dams) and the effects caused by natural events (e.g. vio-
and soil erosion) a couple of centuries earlier in the Bronze Age. lent storms). Possible damage includes sediment deposits and gullying
(water has hollowed out a site) on the neighboring field (Digest
2.3. Historical descriptions of soil erosion during Roman Times 39.3.2.7, cf. Suppl. 1.6). Milde (1950) pointed out that the described ac-
tions of the Digesta were extensively used and must have had a definite
In Roman Times, many ancient philosopher–scientists and writers practical implication in soil conservation during Roman Times. It repre-
like M. Porcius Cato, M. Terentius Varro, L. Iunius Moderatus Columella, sents the origin of the rules of modern civil law with regard to the runoff
Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, Plinius the Elder, and Vergilius of surface water (Milde, 1950).
Maro recognized the importance of soil fertility and/or gave compre-
hensive practical instructions on how to manage and fertilize the soil 2.4. Historical records of soil erosion in central Europe
(Winiwarter, 2006a; Brevik and Hartemink, 2010; Emberger, 2012).
Compared to the large amount of such documents being available, little In central Europe, which extends from central France, Belgium, the
evidence is seen that the Romans recognized the problem of soil ero- Netherlands, and Germany, to Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia,
sion, even soil erosion had been a serious issue in many areas of the research on historical documents to analyze the perception of climate
Roman Empire (Butzer, 2005; Dusar et al., 2011). The polymath Marcus and environmental degradation has a long tradition. Particularly, in
Terentius Varro, who lived from 116–27 BCE, wrote in his “De re rustica” the context of historical climatology thousands of citations have been
(a comprehensive textbook in three volumes) about all aspects of agri- collected (e.g., Weikinn, 1958–1963; Deutsch, 1999; Pfister, 2001;
culture. In the first volume he gives instructions on how to manage the Pfister et al., 2002; Brázdil et al., 2005; Glaser et al., 2005; Glaser,
soil during the year. He suggests that it is not profitable to plant violet 2008). Most of the historical records are related to heavy precipitation
beds on a farm because they have to be planted on the ridges of a events, floods, and the damage they caused; sometimes sediment ag-
ridge-and-furrow field. Under such conditions, irrigation and heavy gradation in rivers and the destruction of crops in valley bottoms or
rains wash the soil away and make the ground poorer (Book I, 35,1, on hillslopes are also mentioned. We can assume that in medieval
cited in Hooper and Ash, 1936; cf. Suppl. 1.4). About 100 years later, times farmers perceived soil erosion after extreme precipitation events
Columella, who lived from 4 CE to around 70 CE, also recognized but only minute traces of documentary evidence were recorded by con-
the problem of soil erosion in the context of farming. In his book “On temporary historians or scholars. Even extreme gullying events, as oc-
agriculture” he suggests that on irrigated fields the water should not curred in the first half of the fourteenth century, were demoted by the
flow too fast over the field in order to retain the soil: for in loose soil it damage of the related floods because the destruction along the rivers
is not wise to let in too heavy a flow of water before the ground is packed was much more apparent than soil erosion in the fields.
and bound together by vegetation, because the force of the water washes As a result, records with explicit descriptions of soil erosion are rare
away the soil and, by exposing the roots, does not allow the grass to or poorly preserved. Extensive case studies on historical records about
gain a foothold (Book II. xvii. 5, cited in Forster and Heffner, 1941, soil erosion in the area between central France and western Germany
vol. I, pp. 210f.; cf. Suppl. 1.5). In the context of planting vineyards, he were carried out by Jean Vogt (e.g. Vogt, 1953, 1958, 1960, 1970) and
suggested methods to protect the soil and enhance water infiltration Gerhard Hard (e.g. Hard, 1963a,b, 1968, 1970), and for central Europe
(Book V. x. 5, cited in Forster and Heffner, 1941, vol. II, pp. 88f.; cf. in general by Bork et al. (1998). According to these compilations, the
Suppl. 1.5). Columella also observed the process of soil erosion and sed- earliest known records that point indirectly to soil erosion are from
imentation in the landscape. In the context of selecting suitable soil for the late thirteenth century CE. At this time floods occurred and soil
vineyards he wrote: […] that the bases of mountains, which have received erosion damaged fields in Kerpen in Silesia (today Kierpień in south
6 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

struck all over Germany as a result of extreme precipitation events

(Fig. 3, pm 2-4). These events may have caused the most severe destruc-
tion by a flood that ever occurred in the history of central Europe. Some
of the records related to this flood also provide some indirect evidence
on soil erosion. Phrases like: water spout from everywhere, even from
the top of the mountains, yet that water covered areas, where it was unusu-
al; but [water] bursted from hidden streams, down the mountains; and
springs and streams spilled out of the ground (cf. Suppl. 2.1) confirm ex-
treme amounts of runoff. The water flowed along dry depressions or
newly developed gullies. The effects of soil erosion and decline of soil
fertility in the first half of the fourteenth century might have triggered
starvation, and a massive decline in population occurred even before
the European-wide pandemic disease, namely the Black Death, in the
years 1347–1351 CE (Bork et al., 1998, p. 238).
The degradation of soils and the rapid decline in population caused a
decrease in land use intensity, and a widespread regeneration of wood-
land occurred in the following decades. During the second half of the
fourteenth century CE, the percentage of forest increased from around
20% to over 40% while the proportion of cultivated fields declined by
the same amount (Fig. 2). Forests regrew particularly on steeper slopes
Fig. 3. Memorial stone at the St. Blasien church in Hannoversch Münden (pm 2-4) which and wasted areas, but erosive legacies might have still been visible in
documents the largest flood in central Europe between July nineteenth and 21st, 1342 CE. the landscape. Some miniatures from the fifteenth and sixteenth centu-
Translation: In the year of the Lord 1342, on the 24th July, a flood occurred on the Weser ries show corrugated landscapes, but it is not clear if these paintings
and Fulda Rivers, and the great height of the water touched the lower rim of this ashlar allegorize real landscape elements or if they simply mirror the imagina-
stone (picture taken on 15.07.2000 by the author).
tion of the artists. A prominent example is the book of hours “Les Tres
Riches Heures du Duc de Berry” first commissioned around 1410 CE
Poland; pm 2-3) and exemption from taxes was agreed for the monas- (Fig. 4). The paintings were created between 1416 and 1485 and illus-
tery in Leubus (today Lubiąż) (Thoma, 1894, p. 68). In the first half of the trate different farming activities in a figurative landscape of the Savoy
fourteenth century CE, climate deterioration triggered an increase in ex- in France (pm 2-5) (Longnon and Cazelle, 1969). The fissures in the
treme weather events, and large floods took place throughout central landscape could be related to the karstic landscape or gullies caused
Europe. Particularly between 19 and 21 July 1342 CE, extensive floods by soil erosion.

Fig. 4. ‘Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry’ which includes figurative landscape paintings of the Savoy in France (pm 2-5) (Longnon and Cazelle, 1969). The fissures in the landscape
could be related to the karstic landscape or to gullies caused by soil erosion. Left: folio 48 recto, annunciation to the herdsmen; right: folio 88 recto, request for safeguard; both miniatures
were painted by Jean Colombe (1467–1529 CE).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 7

In the following centuries the intensity of land use was influenced by very detailed information about the causes of soil erosion and their so-
warfare, particularly during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), and by cioeconomic consequences, e.g. in the year 1791: The inhabitants of
epidemics. Historical records show a small number of extreme precipita- Althornbach [village in southwest Germany (pm 2-8)] have become
tion events in the following centuries and they reveal little evidence for very poor and ruined because of the gullying of their fields — as a result,
soil erosion until the eighteenth century. One example has been pre- many people left their country (Hard, 1976, p. 225) (cf. Suppl. 2.4). A
served from Kazimierz Dolny (pm 2-6), a small town in southeast Poland very impressive example is the cadastral survey of the Heyliedgraben
that became very prosperous during the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. in the Eichsfeld region in Germany from 1768. It shows a very detailed
At that time, the city functioned as a port and a trading post between the situation of dissected furrows between the fields and the deep incision
Vistula River and an important trading route for grain and timber run- of a former road (Fig. 6, pm 2-9). The map was produced in the context
ning to the city of Lublin via the Nałęczów Plateau (Teodorowicz- of a legal action because the farmers were not able to farm their degrad-
Czerepińska, 1981). The mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries ed land and hence could not pay their tithe (Hempel, 1957).
had been called “a golden age” for Kazimierz Dolny, but the massive de-
forestation of the loess-covered Nałęczów Plateau triggered devastating
flash floods and gullying. Frequent and intensive gully erosion at the 2.5. The advent of early research on soil erosion and soil conservation in
end of the sixteenth century can be inferred from a resolution of the central Europe with a focus on Germany
Sejm (parliament) from 1601, which states that taxes have to be in-
creased to pay for the repair of two bridges on the Grodarz creek, “that The agricultural knowledge in medieval central Europe was based
every year the rapid water from hills breaks and siltate” (in Polish: które on traditions, and only scholars may have had access to documents
co rok woda z gór gwałtowna psuje i muli (cited in Rutkowski, 1965)). In that described farming practices. The first treatises on agriculture after
May 1633, massive flash floods were reported for Kazimierz Dolny. the essays by Roman writers appeared in the thirteenth century and
The event of 1644 was captured in a poem (Montusiewicz, 1991), e.g.: were mostly written in Latin although hand-copied manuscripts were
Where once there were high hills, now there are deep valleys. (cf. Suppl. also translated into other languages. In the following centuries further
2.2 for a full translation of the poem). The sale of one-third of all estates agricultural treatises show a development in agricultural knowledge, al-
could be related to the devastation of crops by the downpour and though it was still based on the sophisticated knowledge from antiquity
a subsequent lack of funds (Teodorowicz-Czerepińska, 1981). The origins (Winiwarter, 2006a,c).
of the current dense gully network on the Nałęczów Plateau, which part- Until the end of the eighteenth century, no records showed an inter-
ly exceeds 10 km/km2 (Maruszczak, 1973), with gullies up to 40 m est in the nature of soil erosion and soil conservation by scholars. A sole
wide and 20 m deep can be traced back to the massive soil erosion in exception could be the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who lived from 1452
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Fig. 5) (Dotterweich et al., to 1519 CE. He was fascinated by water and its power and examined the
2012b). Similarly, in western Slovakia, a local chronicle describes soil motion of waves and currents. He observed the landscape of the South
erosion and gullying around the village of Bukovec (pm 2-7) in the Tyrolean Dolomites in northern Italy and southern Switzerland and pos-
Myjava hill land between the end of the sixteenth century and 1730 CE tulated the principle of (geological) erosion. For example, in the Arundel
(Dotterweich et al., 2013) (cf. Suppl. 2.3). The geomorphic legacies of Codex (written between 1478 and 1518 CE), he wrote: Here are the
these soil erosion events are visible even today (Dotterweich et al., rivers which carry the eroded ground earth from the hills […] (folio 42v,
2013). cited in Fumagalli, 1938, p. 195). On the same folio he noticed that the
Geomorphic investigations show that soil erosion and gullying in- river Gießbach (Switzerland, pm 2-10) brought so much earth and stones
creased in the eighteenth century. A rising number of reports on floods and along his riverbed, that the river course changed. (Fumagalli, 1938,
and environmental degradation are also evident in the historical p. 201). In addition, the properties of water, rocks, and fossils have
records. The records confirm the observation of rapid formation of been elaborately described in the Codex Atlanticus (written between
gullies by runoff and soil erosion (Suppl. 2.4). Some records also give 1480 and 1518 CE) and in the Codex Leicester (1506–1508 CE).

Fig. 5. Gully system at Kazimierz Dolny, SE-Poland (pm 2-6). The main incision took place episodically in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Dotterweich et al., 2012b) (picture taken
on 21.04.2009 by the author).
8 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

Fig. 6. Survey of the gullied areas in the Heyliedgraben (Eichsfeld, Germany) in 1768 CE (pm 2-9). The parallel gullies have a length of up to 120 m and a depth of up to 10 m. They dis-
sected the furrows between the field ridges which had an original length of about 400 m and a spacing of about 20 m. Title: Grund Riß der Amts Herzberger Schenkflure vor Lütgenhausen
wie selbige bey der in dem Jahre 1768 vollstreckten Vermessung von denen Zehentziehern angewiesen und befunden worden von Johann Heinrich Kaltenbach (cited and modified by
Hempel, 1957, Karte IV).

The interest in soil erosion and soil conservation awakened at the At the same time, Johann Anton Schmitt, a professor for forestry at
end of the eighteenth century. A scholar in the Alsace region (eastern the University of Vienna, warned that total clearcuts of wooded plots
France) wrote: They do not recognize that the hills used to be covered in in mountainous areas in Austria should be stopped to avoid runoff and
woodland and that the trees' roots bind the soil and soak up water, thereby the loss of soil by erosion after heavy precipitation events or snowmelts.
preventing flooding as well as gullying (Vogt, 1960, p. 203) (cf. Suppl. 2.4). He also realized that the loss of soil may hinder reforestation (Schmitt,
An important scholar in agriculture at the turn of the eighteenth to 1810, p. 83).
nineteenth centuries was Albrecht Daniel Thaer (1752–1828), a re- In 1815, the “Königliche Societät der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen”
nowned agronomist and the inventor of agronomy in Germany. He in Germany announced a competition with the question: “In mountain-
wrote a textbook about agriculture in England to enhance agricultural ous areas, which are the most appropriate means to prevent the arable land
practices in Germany (Thaer, 1798) (cf. Suppl. 2.5). He warned about from running off at prevalent deluges without fostering erosion within
the construction and management of field plots in the direction of the steep ditches too much?” (Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften in
slopes because runoff may wash down fertilizer and soil (Suppl. 2.5.2). Göttingen Scient. 196, Vol. VIII, Fasz. 94, Nr. 13/14, cited in Hempel,
Instead, he suggested that the individual plots should run along the con- 1957, p. 13). In total, 11 essays were submitted that represent an exten-
tours and for contour plowing to be practiced. Together with Samuel sive collection about the perception of soil erosion and possible
Deane in North America (cf. Section 5.2), Thaer was one of the first methods to prevent it in the early nineteenth century. Several useful
scholars who suggested contour plowing to avoid soil erosion. However, methods to inhibit soil erosion were suggested like the construction of
his suggestion to construct ditches along the slopes to discharge the terraces, contour plowing, creation of grassy bands along contour
water during heavy rainfalls could be very counterproductive because lines, planting of bushes, and changes in field structures. Other less suit-
it enhances gullying. Furthermore, Thaer continued that most of the able methods were also suggested like the construction of ridge-and-
farmers were not willing to construct and maintain such a field system. furrow fields, and the construction of draining ditches (Hempel, 1957,
He wrote: Construction of a draining ditch in the appropriate direction was p. 13).
impossible, because no one was prepared to sacrifice enough of his land and The winner of the competition was Friedrich Heusinger (1792–
nobody wanted their field to be cut in two. (Suppl. 2.5.8). 1883), a preacher from Römhild in Thuringia. He was an excellent ob-
About one decade later, Thaer advocated more elaborate methods to server of soil erosion and had a clear understanding of its characteristics.
prevent soil erosion in his second book “Grundsätze der rationellen In his essay he gave extensive descriptions on the causes, processes, and
Landwirtschaft (Principles of Economic Agriculture)” (Thaer, 1811). He consequences of soil erosion (Heusinger, 1815). For example, he re-
provided detailed descriptions on the process of soil erosion, promoted ferred to the protective effects of vegetation and the negative impacts
contour plowing methods, gave instructions on how to divide fields into of clearcuts to the soil. He discussed the problems of siltation in valleys
separate plots, and how to dig draining ditches (Suppl. 2.6). Thaer was and the long-term effects of soil erosion to soil fertility. Heusinger also
also aware of the loss of nutrients and water. To collect the runoff he rec- saw the disadvantages of ridge-and-furrow systems, which triggered
ommended the construction of interception ditches at the lower end of linear runoff and gullying. He described and discussed the futile
the drainage ditches and gave detailed instructions on how to build efforts to stop soil erosion and gullying with control structures (cf.
them (Thaer, 1811, p. 91). Suppl. 2.7). Bork et al. (1998, p. 263) pointed out that the essay of
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 9

Heusinger was the first significant textbook about soil conservation observations gained over several decades. He was probably the first
in Germany. About 10 years later it was published in an extended edi- who also analyzed the peasants' perception of soil erosion in Germany
tion (Heusinger, 1826). Both essays also contain detailed sketches on (cf. Suppl. 2.9). Johann Georg Kohl (1808–1878), a German geographer
how to construct terraces and runoff ditches (Fig. 7). who traveled much through North America, Europe, and Russia was
Carl Sprengel (1787–1859) was a professor of agronomy in Germany. probably the first in Germany who offered a scientific description on
In his textbook about land reclamation, published in 1838, he was also the process of soil erosion and gullying. With the example of a gully sys-
aware of the problems of soil erosion, and he described a method of tem on the Krim Peninsula he explained the process of linear runoff
how to trap suspended and colluvial sediments on the footslopes: Often from field furrows or pathways and the development of headcut
dams or embankments have to be built to divert the melt- or rainwater retreatment (Fig. 9) (Kohl, 1841, pp. 63–71).
from the mountains around meadows and fields. It is important to ensure Stadtler (1880) also advocated the construction of draining ditches
the water flowing slowly to a place from where it can be drained into a in the field. He pointed out that the runoff can be seen as “liquid gold”
stream or river via ditches. Furthermore, he gave detailed instructions because of the suspended sediments and soil. Just as Carl Sprengel
on how to build and manage such a system. He suggested that The accu- had already recommended several decades earlier, Stadler suggested
mulated soil has to be dug out as soon as the troughs have filled up. directing the drainage ditches onto the lower parts of the field for
The sediment can be used to fertilise the fields and meadows (Sprengel fertilizing.
1838, p. 57) (cf. Suppl. 2.8). A contemporary report of this time described Ewald Wollny (1846–1901 CE) was one of the first researchers who
that the method of carrying the sediments back to the fields is very com- carried out fundamental scientific investigations relating to soil and
mon in the regions of Thuringia and Saxonia. According to Schmalz water conservation in Germany (Baver, 1939; Böhm, 1996). He
(1820, pp. 149–160) this method was a specific type of land manage- constructed wooden plots with a surface of 80 × 80 cm and a depth of
ment in the region around Altenburg (Thuringia pm 2-11) and it seemed 25 cm for his experiments on runoff and soil erosion (Fig. 10). On one
to be not very sustainable because it caused an exorbitant amount of soil side they had a gutter and a bottle to collect the runoff (Wollny,
removal and additional soil degradation. However, the practice to carry 1890). Between 1881 and 1882 he placed these plots outside under
the deposited sediments back is still common today, particularly in field conditions with different substrates, and vegetation (grass, peas,
areas with specialized cultivation (Fig. 8, pm 2-12). and bare earth) and at altered aspects and slope angles. He was able
In the following decades several short essays about soil erosion and to show that grassland reduces soil erosion significantly while an in-
soil conservation were published in agricultural journals that became creasing slope led to accelerated runoff and soil erosion. With regard
increasingly popular in the nineteenth century (Ehrenberg, 1915, pp. to the vegetation cover, he recognized that vegetation on the surface,
168–170, 1951). For example, Löll (1878) wrote an essay about the pro- particularly grassland, reduces runoff and cleans the water from parti-
cesses of soil erosion and their effect on soil exhaustion on the basis of cles. The root network fixes the soil and hinders soil erosion. Based on

Fig. 7. Examples of soil conservation techniques to prevent soil erosion as suggested by Friedrich Heusinger (Heusinger, 1826) in his second essay. Left side: At the top it shows a terrace
system including runoff ditches viewed from above; below this, different kinds of terraces are shown from different views (top, front and in profile). The drawings at the top of the right-
hand side show the direction of the runoff ditches on a hill from the side and from above. The middle part shows the construction of an underground storage reservoir to collect and drain
water. At the bottom, it shows a mouldboard plough modified for contour plowing.
10 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

Fig. 8. A severe local thunderstorm with a precipitation of 49 mm in 2 h occurred near Deidesheim on 08.07.2005. After this event a wine-grower carries the eroded and accumulated soil
back to his vineyard (pm 2-12). (picture taken on 09.07.2005 by the author).

this data, he concluded that tree cover in forests prevents runoff and soil
erosion very efficiently. The canopy reduces the precipitation intensity,
the litter hinders runoff, and the roots fix the soil. Furthermore, he
asserted that formerly forested soils are highly vulnerable to soil erosion
after clearcuts (Wollny, 1895). At the same time, Hazard (1900) also
made also some field measurements of soil erosion. He observed that
the particle size distribution in the soil changes as an effect of soil ero-
sion. Furthermore, he warned that the ongoing removal of lynchets,
contour parallel field ridges, and terraces would trigger runoff and soil
erosion (Ehrenberg, 1915, pp. 168–170).
In the following decades there was little attention focused on the re-
search of soil erosion in Germany. Paul Ehrenberg (1875–1956), who
was a renowned scientist in agricultural chemistry, pointed out that
little research had been done to understand the processes of soil
erosion (Ehrenberg, 1915, p. 170). Similar to many other countries,
this situation changed in the 1930s with an international awareness of
the serious soil degradation and the subsequent promotion of soil con-
servation in the USA. In 1939, the German Soil Science Society founded
the new section “Soil erosion” chaired by the soil scientist Hans Kuron
(1904–1963) (Breburda and Richter, 1998; Schmidt et al., 2010). In
the following years a large number of papers were published, and
more textbooks about soil erosion in Germany were written in the
1950s e.g. by Schultze (1952).

3. Africa

3.1. Geomorphic evidences of past soil erosion and soil conservation in

Africa

Agriculture in Africa has a long tradition and diverse history. Unlike

the land use evolution in western Asia or the Mediterranean, the earliest

Fig. 9. Gully system on the Crimean peninsula published in (Kohl, 1841, p. 69). Key: 1) cross
Section; 2) longitudinal Section; 3) map; B: point of the water breach; x, x pathways passing Fig. 10. Soil erosion plot as described in Wollny (1890, p. 317). His measurements were
around (the gully); a, a, a, tributary gullies; o bottom of the gully; n, n, high steppe. probably the first scientific experiments on soil erosion.
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 11

food producers were mobile pastoralists and not agriculturalists Agricultural terracing was not widespread in Africa, but the con-
(Neumann, 2005). They lived in the Sahara and Sahel region about struction of stone terraces, often built along contour lines, has a long tra-
4500 BCE. In Egypt, agricultural crops were already cultivated around dition particularly in Ethiopia and Tanzania (Showers, 2006b) where
the sixth millennium BCE, but spread into other areas of Africa including the oldest has been dated to about 2450 BCE (Sandor, 2006). In contrast
the central African rainforests only much later. The first pieces of to other terracing systems on hillslopes throughout the world, such
evidence in the Sahara and Sahel region date to around 1800 BCE, structures were also often built to last just for the planting season to
and for the rest of the continent from around the middle of the first control soil erosion, although some did last for as long as 20 years. A
millennium BCE onward (Neumann, 2005). In regions with rainfed ag- prominent example of this type of soil conservation is the “Living Ter-
riculture, traditional soil management (small fields, mulching, and races” in Ethiopia, a system in which the terraces were constructed
nontillage) and the farming of valley bottoms and gentle slopes hin- completely new each year before crop cultivation (Watson, 2009)
dered runoff and soil erosion (Showers, 2005, 2006b), but there are (Fig. 11, pm 3-3).
also examples that traditional mound and ridging systems accelerated In general, despite some examples of prehistorical soil erosion, no
soil erosion in formerly forested areas of West Africa (Nye and evidence is available for the development of large badland areas having
Greenland, 1960). In the highlands of Tanzania, the intensification of ag- been induced by agriculture before the arrival of the Europeans
riculture accelerated soil erosion and gullying in the Mahala Mountains (Showers, 2006b). With the introduction of European agriculture and
at around 500 CE (pm 3-1) (Msaky et al., 2005) and at around 1000 CE land management practices—including large scale deforestation, mono-
in the Irangi Hills (pm 3-2) (Eriksson et al., 2001; Lane, 2009). In the lat- cultures, overgrazing, and deep plowing—soil erosion accelerated and
ter case, erosion was also triggered by woodland clearings to produce many areas throughout Africa were largely devastated by soil erosion
fuel for iron smelting. Human-induced soil erosion in the Ethiopian leading to a rapid decline of soil fertility and land abandonment
and Eritrean highlands dates back to 5000 BP (Nyssen et al., 2004). Ex- (Showers, 2006b). The first soil conservation programs began to be
tensive studies about past soil erosion in northern Ethiopia show that, implemented in the 1930s. Over the last few years, several papers
particularly in the last century, extreme soil erosion and gullying oc- have been published on the history of soil erosion and soil conservation
curred as an effect of woodland removal and agriculture (Nyssen for different areas in Africa (e.g. Beinart, 1984; Showers, 1989; Showers
et al., 2006, 2010). In southern Africa, geomorphic and historical studies and Malahleha, 1992; Beinart, 2003; Meadows and Hoffman, 2003;
of past soil erosion have mainly been carried out in the Karoo Showers, 2005, 2006b; Lane, 2009; McGregor et al., 2009; Lane, 2010).
(Boardman et al., 2003; Mighall et al., 2012), the KwaZulu-Natal prov- Some of them also include oral and written accounts on the perception
ince (Watson, 1996; Watson and Ramokgopa, 1997; Rienks et al., of soil erosion and practices in the transitional phase between the
2000; Foster et al., 2007), Swartland (Meadows, 2003), Lesotho African and European land use period. The following sections focus on
(Showers, 2005), and Malawi (Mulwafu, 2011). An early compilation Lesotho and Malawi because this region has been highly degraded by
of studies relating to the soil erosion history of southern Africa has soil erosion since the introduction of European farming methods around
been edited by (Dardis and Moon, 1988, pp. 187–320). 150−250 years ago (Meadows and Hoffman, 2003), and extensive
The studies show that soil erosion and gullying accelerated soon after analyses of historical sources were carried out regarding the perception
the European arrival in the nineteenth century. A second phase was pri- of soil erosion and soil conservation.
marily triggered by an increase in grazing between the 1930s and the
1960s. Already in the early twentieth century an extensive overview 3.2. Geomorphic and historic legacies of past soil erosion and soil
(with many photographs) about the causes and processes of soil erosion, conservation, an example from Lesotho
including instructions for soil erosion prevention and land reclamation in
South Africa, was presented by Torrance (1919). Today, land degradation An investigation on past soil erosion and soil conservation with ex-
is still a major concern in South Africa, and the awareness of the problem tensive analyses of historical sources for Lesotho has been presented
and attitudes toward it have changed little over the past century. Soil by Showers (1989, 2005) and Showers and Malahleha (1992). Agricul-
erosion is viewed as a result of overpopulation, overgrazing, and poor ag- ture in this area began relatively late with the arrival of the Basotho
ricultural practices (Critchley and Netshikovhela, 1998). (Sesotho-speaking people in Lesoto) around 1600 CE. The farmers

Fig. 11. Newly constructed ‘Living Terrace’ near Konso (pm 3-3) in the highlands of southern Ethiopia (picture taken on 30.12.2009, courtesy of H.-R. Bork).
12 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

lived in small villages in a relatively small area with a large mountain improved soil fertility and therefore increased yields. Elders knew of dif-
range. The small cultivated fields were located predominantly in valleys ferent strategies like placing grass or tree branches on the top of the
and managed with wooden hoes providing few opportunities for soil outer ridge or planting sugar cane or other plants and fruits on the
erosion. In the first half of the nineteenth century European settlers ar- outer ridge of their gardens. In addition, various types of grasses were
rived and brought new crops and new soil management techniques, used for livestock feeding. In hilly areas, the plantations were
which triggered soil erosion in this area. The native people were subse- set along the contour lines. Peasants only used basic tools like hoes
quently displaced to steeper areas that are more vulnerable to soil ero- and axes and non-labor-intensive practices. In some areas, stone walls
sion (Showers, 2005). Description about soil erosion came from were built across the slopes in order to prevent runoff and soil
travelers, mission stations, agricultural experimental stations, farms, erosion. One other method was to divert a stream from its natural
plantations, and ranches (Showers, 2006b). According to Showers course above a garden. The water was sometimes directed into a
(2005), an early mention of accelerated soil erosion with a specific site furrow and/or stored in a pond behind an earthen dam to irrigate the
description is from the 1880s. At the sight of the deep ravines which tra- fields (Mulwafu, 2011, pp. 33–35). This type of soil and water
verse Basutoland in every direction and which continue to grow from management was widely used until a significant population increase
year to year, progressively draining and desiccating the most fertile parts, caused by immigration of different African groups and European
one of our Christians remarked the other day: Naha ea tsofala, the land is settlers in the late nineteenth century CE occurred. Various social and
aging (Duvoisin, cited in Germond, 1938, p. 410). Possible causes power relations competed against the traditional systems. Slash-and-
and specific locations of soil erosion were mentioned by people who vis- burn practices and shifting cultivation became more popular on the
ited the mission stations in the lowlands 1882–1883 (Showers, 2005, scarce land resulting in an increase of soil erosion and environmental
p. 139). For example, H. Kruger wrote: We lost our direction in this laby- degradation. In the early colonial period, African production systems
rinth and instead of remaining on the heights, eventually tumbled down a and conservation practices increasingly came under attack from colo-
pile of fallen boulders of every dimension into a ravine. Some three hundred nial state officials and some missionaries who sought to control access
metres below it opens out into a wide cultivated vale […] Behind the station to land and labor resources. The Colonists did not realize the intrinsic
of Barea the children of the first missionary generation remember how they causes of land degradation and the historic practices; instead they be-
used to jump over a little brook which separated the garden from a planta- lieved that Africans had no idea of manuring and effective management
tion of willows and poplars; today there exists at the same place a ravine of land resources. The European idea of soil conservation was to settle
thirty-six to forty-five feet wide (Kruger, 1888, cited in Germond, 1938, permanently in a certain area with careful manuring allowing a con-
p. 408). Showers (2005, p. 141) pointed out that, according to the his- stant rise of crop yields. Soon after a declaration in the 1890s CE, a series
torical records, gully erosion was essentially unknown in the 1830s of restrictive measures were introduced resulting in increasing rates of
but that it had developed along roads and on some mission stations deforestation, wildlife depletion, and soil erosion (Mulwafu, 2011, p.
by the early 1890s. Reports in the early twentieth century show a mix- 51). A report on soil erosion on private estates from 1930 indicates
ture of general statements and specific site descriptions (Showers, that sheet and gully erosion had been taking place to an alarming degree
2005). In a record of 1908, the Basutoland was described as having nu- (Haviland, 1930). After the 1930s, the colonial state began to realize the
merous, vast and unsightly scars upon the surface, and in 1909 it was importance of soil erosion control, but state interventions bifurcated be-
mentioned that almost everywhere certain gardens are in danger by soil tween rural and private lands. Harsh conservation campaigns were
erosion. The Colonial Annual Report of 1911/12 stated that soil erosion spread over the rural areas, while on the mainly European-owned pri-
has been gradually getting worse and worse, and the resident commis- vate estates they came much later and were not adequately enforced.
sioner asserted in a speech that your country is being washed away (all On the whole, estate owners did not use many methods to control soil
cited in Showers, 2005, p. 141). In the following decades, many other re- erosion. But in the early 1940s, with the help of well-educated soil con-
ports or speeches warned about the dramatic effects of soil erosion. servationists, there was a new focus on what might be called integrated
Some of them link their negative effects on intense livestock farming, land use management in modern terminology. This was the birth of
agriculture, and economy, but actions to prevent soil erosion were still Malawi's modern soil conservation network (Mulwafu, 2011, p. 72).
rare in the 1930s (Showers, 2005).
However, during the 1920s the first experimental stations were 4. Asia
established, and systematic and sustained investigations on soil erosion
were carried out. In the 1930s and 1940s the official concern about soil 4.1. Geomorphic evidence and causes of past soil erosion in Asia
erosion increased and many professional publications and research
papers were produced. Programs for farmers to prevent soil erosion or Many countries in Asia have experienced and suffered from soil ero-
to mitigate its consequences were also established (Showers, 2006b, sion since the beginning of agriculture. A few millennia after the devel-
p. 158). However, they often failed, and according to interviews, rural opment of land cultivation in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians around
farmers were critical of certain professional conservation structures be- 10,000 BCE, agriculture spread into China and India (Troeh et al.,
cause they seemed to have favored soil erosion instead of preventing it 2004). Severe soil erosion damage was generally caused by deforestation
(Showers, 2005). and land exploitation as well as by extreme population pressure and cli-
mate change (e.g., Lowdermilk, 1953; Brown, 2001). For example,
3.3. Early historical oral traditions and written records of soil erosion and Wasson (2006) gave an overview about the exploitation and conserva-
soil conservation, an example from southern Malawi tion of soil in South Asia with a focus on India over the last 3000 years.
He was able to show a causality chain between growing populations, de-
Mulwafu (2011) examined the impact of state intervention on the forestation, soil erosion, floods, and land abandonment similar to the
peasant economy in the highlands of southern Malawi with specific em- theory of “Himalayan Environmental Degradation” (Ives and Messerli,
phasis on the Shire Highlands districts of Zomba, Chiradzulu, and Thyolo 1989). Integrative studies of multiple archives in the Lake Erhai
(pm 3-4). The investigation of Mulwafu (2011) shows that, during the catchment in SW China (pm 4-1) provided a system–theoretical under-
pre-colonial period, the semisedentary Africans had a very good knowl- standing of climate–human–environment interactions over the past
edge about soil fertility and soil management. They used many different 3000 years (Dearing et al., 2008). The relationship between soil erosion
local conservation practices such as general tilling before planting, and land degradation starts from a nondegraded steady state through a
raised mounds, mixed cropping, and planting protective grasses to pre- transition period leading to the modern degraded steady state. Such an
vent runoff and soil erosion. According to oral traditions, they were approach also includes the capacity to show possible future trajectories
aware that undertaking conservation helped to prevent soil erosion, of landscape recovery (Dearing, 2008).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 13

Agricultural terracing for irrigation and to prevent soil erosion orig- important role, particularly variations in the amount of precipitation
inated in the Middle East about 6000 BCE and spread in all directions (Ren and Zhu, 1994). The last phase of human-induced accelerated
(Sandor, 2006). A secondary center developed in Indochina (Spencer soil erosion took place during the 1930s, 1950s, and the later part of
and Hale, 1961; Gregor, 1970). A very successful example of achieving the 1960s, which has led to the famous Loess Plateau experiencing
soil conservation has been demonstrated in the highlands of Papua some of the most severe soil erosion recorded anywhere in the world
New Guinea (pm 4-2; here, Papua New Guinea is geographically count- (He et al., 2006). The current landscape was formed by climate and
ed to southeast Asia and not to Australia because of the similar land use human impact, and today, more than 70% of the Loess Plateau is dissect-
history). On this island, an elaborated traditional soil management sys- ed by gullies. An average gully density of about 3–5 km2 exists in
tem with living fences, gridded field plots, and compost mounds 30–50% of the whole area (He et al., 2004). The footslopes, valley bot-
allowed sustainable agriculture on fairly steep slopes over centuries toms, and river deltas are covered with sediment up to several decam-
(Humphreys and Brookfield, 1991). However, despite the long history eters. Because of the high vulnerability of the soils to erosion, soil
of cultivation studies, concentrating on the perception of soil erosion conservation strategies like hillslope terracing have a long tradition in
in historical times is rare. Here, the focus will be on China for which China. Some hillslope terraces date back around 3000 BCE (Sandor,
the most comprehensive studies on past soil erosion are available. 2006). For example, charcoal deposited in the lowermost sediments in
a terrace in the Shaanxi region (Fig. 12, pm 4-3) was dated to
4.2. Geomorphic legacies on past soil erosion and conservation on the loess 4750 cal. BP (Bork et al., 2006). The recent implementation of soil and
plateau in China water conservation measures like terracing, reforesting, and dam con-
structions (Ping et al., 2012; Zhou et al., 2013) has decreased the Yellow
The agricultural and anthropogenic soil erosion history in China River's sediment load by 25% since the 1980s (He et al., 2006).
covers a time span of more than 7000 years. The ancestors of the
Chinese cleared forests, terraced hill slopes for irrigation and soil con- 4.3. Historical descriptions on soil erosion, related floods, and soil
servation, and partitioned the valley floors into fields. Particularly the conservation in China until the twentieth century
Loess Plateau, which is situated in the middle reach of the Yellow Rivers
is well known to the world because of severe soil erosion incising deeply Most of the research on the environmental history of soil erosion in
into the immensely thick deposits. The first scattered villages with Neo- China is related to deforestation, floods, sediment aggradation in rivers
lithic rice farmers appeared on the alluvial plains of central China about and their related damages (e.g. Elvin, 1993, 2004; Edmonds, 1994; Fang
7000 to 5000 BCE (Liu, 2004; Rosen, 2008; Li et al., 2010). A slight cli- and Xie, 1994; Elvin and Liu, 1998; Osborne, 1998). Similar to the situ-
matic cooling that occurred from 2500 BCE to 700 CE was accompanied ation at many other sites, surveys on historical documents focusing on
by deforestation and other vegetation changes that are partly attributed hillslope erosion and gullying are rare.
to cultivation. At this time, the Loess Plateau was relatively flat and not One of the oldest published records concerning environmental
yet dissected and human-accelerated soil erosion was a fairly local phe- protection measures in general comes from Guanzi (also called
nomenon. The Yellow River and many of its tributaries had clear water Guanzhong) who lived in the seventh century BCE. He advocated that
and carried very little sediment. Generally, it was known as Da He or forests, rivers, and marshes were a resource that should be protected.
Great River before the seventh century CE. However, during the Tang Guanzi further noted fire prevention and strict conventions on tree cut-
Dynasty (618 to 907 CE), the name Yellow River appears in the historic ting as important aspects of environmental protection. He also linked
documents that points toward a high sediment concentration (Ren and environmental protection and development: In spring if the government
Zhu, 1994). During this period, historic documents and sediment de- does not prohibit [cutting] than hundreds will not grow. In summer if the
posits show an increase in magnitude and frequency in the flood regime government does not prohibit (cutting) than the crops will not succeed
with severe destruction of the protective dykes that flanked the Yellow (cited in Edmonds, 1994, p. 25).
River. These floods were mainly caused by clearances, farming, and as- The probably oldest record on soil erosion in China was documented
sociated soil erosion of the fragile loess uplands in the river's middle by Wen Tao during the Warring States era (403–221 BCE). He suggested
and upper course (Elvin, 1993; Ren and Zhu, 1994; Wang et al., 2006). that the Chinese had an understanding of the relationship between de-
The correlation between an increasing population and soil erosion is forestation and soil erosion in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty: The rulers enjoy
clear (Wang et al., 2006). This trend of rapid sediment aggradation con- themselves degrading famous mountain spots. This blocks the great rivers
tinued during the early Song Dynasty (CE 960 to 1279) parallel to the which overflow around the famous mountains. Therefore, great floods
economic prosperity and rapid destruction of forests (Xu, 2003). The in- come more often, harming the people and causing the crops not to grow
crease in population had already led to a shortage of wood for fuel in the (cited in Edmonds, 1994, p. 24). In the mid-first millennium BCE, iron
central eastern area by the eleventh century CE (Elvin, 2004, p. 20). The axes became available and woodland exploitation rose in the Sichuan
following centuries were dominated by warfare with socioeconomic region. In the third century CE, Zuo Si wrote a rhapsodic description
impacts to nomadic minorities who were assimilated by the Han on the Min River basin in the region of Chengdu, the capital of the Si-
Chinese. This cultural assimilation and social development generated chuan region at the end of the early imperial period. The main passage
additional forest clearances and accelerated soil erosion. During the fol- of Zuo's poem describes an environment that is busily exploited but
lowing centuries, the sediment load of the Yellow River was generally still not yet spoiled. For the southern hinterland of Chengdu of the
high, which indicates severe soil erosion in its catchment. Particularly Min River basin, he depicted a humid world with a great variety of
during the Ming period (1368–1644), the whole of the central reaches trees: Valleys hug one like arms; [natural?] gullies close round like mouths.
of the Huang River Valley began to undergo extreme deforestation ac- Crests, straight-ridged or circling are tangled and twisting, Interposing their
companied by an expansion of agriculture, in some cases at the expense rocks and deflecting the clouds, The dense forests a haze under bluish-green
of grazing land. Even the Yinshan Range to the north of the Loess mists, The lone summits imposing, rising uplifted (cited in Elvin, 2004,
Plateau, for which records suggest that it was still forested during the p. 60).
Mongol Yuan dynasty, began to suffer as the Mongols encouraged About 500 years later, Liu Zongyuan, a philosopher and essayist who
Han-Chinese agriculturalists to settle in the area. All this deforestation lived around the eight to ninth centuries CE, captured the processes of
was to have a serious impact on the Huang River as flooding became in- deforestation and the consequences of runoff, soil erosion, and the cre-
creasingly more common and silt loads reached new heights during the ation of gullies very metaphorically in a poem (Elvin, 2004, p. 19) (cf.
time of the Ming dynasty (Edmonds, 1994, p. 25). Suppl. 1.7). According to the history of the Song Dynasty, scholars
Deforestation was not the only factor for accelerated soil erosion had a good knowledge of the close relationship between deforesta-
after the first millennium CE; changes in climate also played an tion and soil erosion and they were also aware of the environmental
14 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

Fig. 12. This terrace in the Zhongzuimao catchment near Yangyuangou (Shaanxi region) in China (pm 4-3) has a height of about 8 m. Deposited charcoal at the base of the terrace dates
back to around 4750 BP (Bork et al., 2006) (picture taken in Sept. 2003, courtesy of H.-R. Bork).

consequences of filling in lakes to create additional crop land (Edmonds, in the first half of the eighteenth century. They deforested the hillsides
1994, p. 25). Such relationships are recorded, for example, as a river and planted maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. As recently as the
burst its banks in Tanzhou and flooded several provinces in November 1720s CE, deforestation had spread everywhere in the northwestern
971 CE. In 972 CE, the emperor gave an order for local people to plant Zhejiang province. During the Taiping Rebellion (1850 to 1864 CE), a
50 trees per year (Toqto’a and Alutu, 1343) (cf. Suppl. 1.8). About further forced influx of shed people occurred and the hilly slopes were
1020 AD, the Prime Minister (Wu Chong) suggested leaving thousands intensively tilled causing continual soil erosion (Yoshinobu, 1998, p.
of hectares of fertile lands fallow because of the ongoing floods. A dis- 163). In this context, Mei Boyan (who lived from 1786 to 1856 CE),
cussion about the primary reason responsible for frequent flooding wrote an account on how these seminomadic groups farmed in the
events, the rapid siltation of river beds, was also recorded. Such hills south of the Yangzi: When the late Dong Wenke was governor of
silting-up processes and discussions about the disadvantages (destruc- Anhui province [in the East] he wrote a memorial … on the opening up
tion of crops) and advantages (delivery of nutrients) have been the mountains by the shed people … they had let the riches in several hun-
recorded repeatedly in different volumes of the book about the History dred mou [~7% of a hectare] or so of mountains run to waste (Zengliang,
of Song (Toqto'a and Alutu, 1343). Also, in younger historical texts dis- 1968) cited in Elvin (2004, pp. 22f.). The account continues with a de-
cussions about growing trees to prevent rivers from flooding are men- tailed description about the observed effects of deforestation and the
tioned frequently, but explicit descriptions on soil erosion in the processes and effects of soil erosion to the soil fertility and river system
uplands are missing. by the local people at Xuancheng (Anhui, Ningguo prefecture, pm 4-5)
In the context of maintaining the Bai Canal (a part of the Zheng-bai (cited in Osborne, 1998, pp. 218f.) (cf. Suppl. 1.9). A note from You
irrigation system of the Shaanxi province), a dam across the river was Xian Zhi in 1874 CE describes the sediment aggradation in the lower
erected each year to manage the water level in the tenth century. In Xiang River: Mud, sand, and gravel are piling higher and higher. Many of
the fifteenth century a feeder tunnel was built to renew the system. the tributary creeks are silted up and the water no longer flows. Many of
Overflow tunnels and grille-like barriers were constructed across the the fields are dry. The massive clear-cuts led to more frequent flooding
gullies to let water through but block the debris, and the canal was and drying up of the Xiang River (Edmonds, 1994, p. 33).
roofed at key points to let gully runoff flow over it. This avoided silting By the early nineteenth century, deforestation was so immense that
up and damage by natural hazards such as floods of the Jing River and it led to a shortage of timber, bamboo, and fuel, which initiated a feed-
debris flows carrying rocks down the gullies (Elvin, 2004, p. 123). back of further destruction, soil erosion, silting of waterways, and floods
The gazetteer for the Prefecture of Ningxia (in the Northwest) re- (Osborne, 1998, p. 216). A contemporary report written by Fang Chun
ported in 1780 CE that there is little soil in the mountains, but numerous describes the dimension of reclamation and the effects of soil erosion
stones. The trees all grow in crevices in the rocks. This suggests soil ero- by heavy rains on the Huizhou's periphery (pm 4-6) (Chun, 1827)
sion, though it also seems that there existed still some good cover on (cited in Osborne, 1998, pp. 216ff.) (cf. Suppl. 1.10). Osborne (1998)
the west-facing slopes (Elvin, 2004, p. 28). highlights that other contemporary authors also had a clear under-
Intensive environmental degradation including soil erosion has been standing of the impact that highland reclamation had on the ecology
described for the Yangzi and Han River drainage basin. For example, in of the region, like loss of water retention capacity, drop of the water
the catchment of the South Lake in the Yuhang district (present day table, soil erosion, sedimentation, and floods in the early nineteenth
Yuhang Zhen in the lower Yangzi catchment) (pm 4-4) the owners of century. Exemplary citations are: The soil is exhausted so that not even
the hilly districts in the Yangzi valley invited the shack people (or an inch of grass will grow; Roving people reclaimed the mountains and
shed people) from the southeastern provinces, where land was in planted maize. Several years later the soil was loosened, causing flooding,
short supply, to serve as their labor force for the production of goods and submerging fields and irrigation ditches. The mountain fell into disuse;
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 15

Rich land became stones and bones, there were mudslides and erosion, and increasing sediment yields to rivers, thus resulting in floodplain accre-
fields that produced rice were covered with sand and gravel. Innumerable tions of 0.5 to 2.0 m within 200 years (Happ, 1945, 1968; Trimble,
ones have been eaten up and are gone (Osborne, 1998, p. 219). 1974; Gregory, 2006; Knox, 2006; Walter and Merritts, 2008). The his-
These observations of environmental degradation and possible solu- toric impact of timber exploitation and agricultural cultivation left
tions led to a controversial discussion as early as the mid-eighteenth clear evidence of hillslope erosion, gullying, and badland formation in
century. Environmentally sound policies were devised to address the uplands and along the bluffs (Ashe, 1909; Bennett, 1939; Ireland
these dilemmas, but no realistic way was found to solve the tradeoffs et al., 1939; Smith, 1983; Grissinger and Murphey, 1984; Phillips,
between ecology and economy. Such failures allowed further environ- 1993; Magilligan and Stamp, 1997; Hyatt and Gilbert, 2000; Ambers
mental degradation to take place. However, in the mid-eighteenth cen- et al., 2006). As a result, soil fertility began to decline. The first proposals
tury, a first set of regulations was already being enforced in the suggesting to preserve forests to prevent soil erosion appeared in the
lowlands. Some decades later, Governor Ruan Yuan prohibited further 1790s (Cronon, 2003). Comprehensive overviews for the European pe-
highland reclamation by outsiders throughout Zhejiang in 1802. A few riod of land use and soil erosion in North America have been given for
years further on, an imperial edict banned such reclamations in Anhui, example by Miller et al. (1985). More recently, James (2011) also in-
and a general policy was enacted for the whole lower Yangzi region cluded the prehistorical period. The following sections present early de-
(Osborne, 1998). Osborne (1998, p. 226) concluded that these regulato- scriptions and the development of soil erosion and soil conservation
ry measures predominately failed because the implementation was research in the western and southwestern parts of the USA. A particular
undermined by the basic contradiction of the state's reliance on elite focus will be given on the northern part of the State of Mississippi.
management. As a result no promotion to replace maize with staple
food took place and investments in tree crops and perennials enhancing 5.2. Early descriptions of soil erosion and soil conservation methods in the
the rural people's livelihood were not supported. USA

5. North America The earliest descriptions of soil erosion and soil conservation in the
USA came mainly from colonial writers, farmers, or naturalists. They no-
5.1. Land use history and geomorphic evidence of past soil erosion in North ticed the massive amount of clearings and their effects on the environ-
America ment, such as negative changes in microclimate, reduced water-holding
capacity, accelerated runoff, increase of floods, and soil exhaustion as
In North America, agriculture began with the domestication of early as the eighteenth century (Cronon, 2003, p. 122; Montgomery,
squash (Cucurbita pepo) and other wild plants at various locations by 2007).
Native Americans about 3000 years BCE (Swanton, 1949; Steponaitis, A extensive compilation about some of their lives and work with re-
1986; Peacock, 1998). The imprint of land use on the environment spect to the perception of soil erosion and suggested techniques to pre-
was low until the agricultural expansion of maize (Zea mays) and vent it has already been assembled by McDonald (1941) and is
beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) about 1000 CE. Subsequently, population summarized here.
densities, deforestation, and land use intensities grew and social hierar-
chies emerged within the agricultural limits between the Mississippi 5.2.1. John Bartram (1699–1777)
River and the mid-Atlantic to southern New England, and to some The first written records are available from John Bartram, an early
areas in the southwest (Doolittle, 2001; Delcourt and Delcourt, 2004; American botanist, horticulturist, and explorer. He had an intensive cor-
James, 2011). In some places, urban centers developed until their de- respondence on agriculture with Jared Eliot, who was a famous farmer
cline in the middle of the last millennium (Fritz, 1990; Peacock, 1998; and physician. In the mid-eighteenth century, Bartram mentioned the
Delcourt and Delcourt, 2004). Cahokia (pm 5-1) is the most prominent situation of rich soils and their degradation by soil erosion in the area
example, a major center of Mississippian culture in the east. The popu- of the New England and the mid-Atlantic coast colonies. Over a period
lation at Cahokia peaked around 1300 CE at ~25,000 people for an area of 20 years, he observed gullying and erosion changing a black and
of 300 km2 (Delcourt and Delcourt, 2004). About 200 years later it had very fertile soil into an area with coarse sand in Pennsylvania, East
almost been abandoned, prior to European contact. Deforestation and Jersey, and York: above 20 years past when the woods was not pastured
subsequent agriculture by Native Americans had triggered accelerated and full of high weeds and the ground light then the rain sunk much
soil erosion and siltation of rivers (Stinchcomb et al., 2011), but it is un- more into the earth and did not wash and tear up the surface (as now).
known if soil erosion was a dominant driving force for the decline in […] but now the rains most of it off on the surface is colected into the hol-
population. Between 1500 and 1800 CE, the decimation of indigenous lows which it wears to the sand and clay which it bears away with the swift
peoples by diseases introduced by Europeans allowed woodlands to re- current down to brooks and rivers whose banks it overflows (Eliot et al.,
generate and was a relatively undisturbed period environmentally, 1934, p. 204). Bartram also described examples from floods of the Hud-
with geomorphic stability and soil development (James, 2011). In son River near Albany that were rich in sediments and how sediments
the semiarid southwestern USA, gully (arroyo) formation has been fertilized the floodplains of the river. On a branch of the Susquehana
discussed intensely as a main factor leading to the abandonment of River, he observed soils like a rotten dung hill and their destruction and
southern Utah and northern Arizona by Anasazi groups (Bryan, 1925; erosion caused by farming and soil erosion (cf. Suppl. 3.1).
Leopold, 1976; Hereford et al., 1995). Terracing was an important strat-
egy for soil conservation and prevention of soil erosion in these semiarid 5.2.2. Jared Eliot (1685–1763)
area (Doolittle, 2001). Jared Eliot had similar ideas. He believed that fine sediment was
In the first half of the seventeenth century CE, colonialists started to washed from the hills and left sterile soils behind while the valleys
displace the Native Americans and settled the landscape in New were choked with fine material. In this context, Eliot warned about
England and the mid-Atlantic coast colonies. Within a few centuries, the depletion of nutrients in the soil caused by nonmanuring of the
large areas of the southeast had been deforested for timber and fuel or fields (Eliot et al., 1934, p. 29) (cf. Suppl. 3.2). Only few farmers made ef-
to gain fields for agriculture. In contrast to the Native Americans, forts to save manure from the farmyards, and land had become so poor
European farmers had much larger fields and they used oxen and horses that Eliot said: it would raise turnips no larger than buttons. Such land
to pull iron plows, which stirred the soil more deeply and more contin- needed dung. This, however, could not be purchased for love or money.
uously. The European style of farming produced bare surfaces and soil Eliot, while recommending manuring, warned against the use of ma-
compaction or intensively grazed grasslands that triggered accelerated nure on sloping lands, where it would be washed away by rain (cf.
runoff and soil erosion. This triggered widespread soil erosion and McDonald, 1941, p. 4). Eliot also developed a soil-building program
16 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

and recommended the digging of ditches and holes to drain water and Virginia”. In his essays he noted: If inclosing, manuring, deep and horizon-
trap sediment. Eliot considered the problem of restoring the original tal ploughing, were unattended by any other advantages, that of preventing
texture of the soil so that eroded lands would again become productive. the land from washing away would in many views be a sufficient recom-
Sediments that were deposited in swampy depressions should be de- mendation of such a system. The disaster is not terminated by the destruc-
posited back on the worn hillsides, while sand could be used as a soil tion of the soil, the impoverishment of individuals, and transmission of a
amendment to meliorate swampy areas (Eliot et al., 1934, p. 156) (cf. curse to futurity. Navigation itself is becoming its victim, and in many
Suppl. 3.3). McDonald (1941) pointed out, that Eliot's ideas had not parts of the United States, our Agriculture has arrived to the insurpassable
been adopted by the famers. Soil conservation and manuring, however, state of imperfection, of applying its best soil to the removal of the worst far-
were difficult as long as land remained unenclosed. Even a provident ther from market (Taylor and Adams, 1813, pp. 172–173). One of the
farmer, using an unenclosed farm, could not conserve the manure of foremost problems in southern agriculture was gully erosion and their
his stock for the benefit of either his tilled fields or pastures. Eliot also reclamation. Taylor was probably the first who promoted methods to
advocated additional soil conservation methods to improve pastures prevent gullying by using his system of “soil renovation”. He wrote:
on depleted or exhausted land. Besides animal and calcareous manures, The effect of manuring and enclosing united in stopping gullies and curing
he employed red clover (Trifolium pratense), timothy (Phleum pretense), galls, is an hundred fold greater, than the most ingenious mechanical con-
and various wild grasses. When Eliot's work was completed, soil conser- trivance. Land filled with roots, covered with litter, aided by buried bushes
vation was still at a fairly elementary stage. However, his work consti- forming covered drains, protected against the wounds of swine and hoofs,
tuted the beginning of literature in the colonies on agriculture in and replenished sex-ennially with the coarse manure of the farm and stable
general and on erosion control in particular, and it was frequently uti- yards will not wash (Taylor and Adams, 1813, pp. 224–225) (full citation
lized by his successors (McDonald, 1941). see Suppl. 3.5).

5.2.3. Samuel Deane (1733–1814) 5.2.6. John Lorrain (1764–1819)

Samuel Deane lived a generation later than Eliot and he also recog- John Lorrain was one of the few men of the mid-Atlantic coast States
nized the ill effects of erosion by water in New England. In his book he who actively tried to solve the erosion problem. To him soil wastage was
wrote more of the fine mould would have been washed down into the hol- an insatiable monster, like Arron's serpent, swallows all the rest (Lorrain,
lows; and deeper channels would have been made in the soil by the running 1825, p. 518). He judged careless furrowing and plowing to be a major
of water which are considerable inconveniences (Deane, 1790, p. 232). reason for the development of gullies particularly when the furrows
Deane carried forward specific principles of plowing to prevent soil were too steep and too large (citation see Suppl. 3.6). To prevent soil
erosion as had already been recommend by Eliot. In addition, Deane erosion, he suggested seeding grass and using a crop rotation system
suggested to plough the furrows a little bit deeper each year and pro- which provided an adequate supply of manure. With regard to plowing,
posed contour plowing to prevent gullying and hillslope erosion. The he proposed contour plowing in such a way that the water would flow
furrows should be turned into one direction so that the water drained through as many furrows as possible. Hence they should be deep
only slowly and no soil was washed away. At first Deane advised throw- enough to carry the water and uniformly shaped to prevent the water
ing up banks of earth on the contours, but dismissed the idea in favor of from concentrating at one point and breaking through the furrows in
ribbing, which was merely running parallel contour furrows at intervals times of excessive precipitation. Lorain believed that gullies could be
on sloping land to prevent soil erosion. He also recommended terracing leveled and filled with stones (McDonald, 1941).
and strip cropping and the plowing of flat ridges about 9 ft wide. His
book probably exerted more influence on New England's farming than 5.2.7. George Washington (1732–1799) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
any other published in the United States until then. It was repeatedly re- George Washington, first president, and Thomas Jefferson, third
vised and published (McDonald, 1941). president of the United States, were two prominent people concerned
with soil conservation. They made experiments to enhance soil fertility
5.2.4. Solomon Drown (1753–1834) and to minimize soil erosion on their farms and emphasized soil man-
Solomon Drown also had an active interest in agriculture. He noted agement methods like crop rotation, including legumes, the use of fertil-
the progressive deterioration of the land to which he attributed in- izers, and the practice of deep plowing (Brooke, 1919; Bennett, 1944;
creasing poverty among New England farmers. Together with his son, Montgomery, 2007). Washington refilled gullies with garbage like fenc-
William Drown (1793–1874), they wrote “The Compendium of Agricul- ing posts and separated large fields into smaller ones to minimize run-
ture, or the Farmer's Guide” (Drown and Drown, 1824, p. 49). They off. Jefferson made various soil conservation experiments on his farm
regarded the current system of tillage as the principal cause of erosion, in Albermarle County in Virginia (pm 5-2). Jefferson introduced the
but they also saw the constant cropping combined with bad plowing as method of “Horizontal Plowing” to his fields, and in the following de-
the chief cause of soil erosion. They warned that the practice to plough cades he became an important advocate of this soil conservation meth-
up and down the hill will trigger soil erosion (Drown and Drown, 1824, od (Bennett, 1944).
p. 82) (cf. Suppl. 3.4). In the place of this destructive practice, the
Drowns recommend the Butler method that was followed by carrying 5.2.8. Isaac Hill (1789–1851)
a furrow down the hill only, and by inclining this furrow to the left hand, di- Isaac Hill lived in New Hampshire when the state was going through
rectly in proportion to the descent of the declivity—and suffering the team its greatest land exploitation. He was one of the first who stated the eco-
to re-ascend the hill without a furrow […] In this way, the steepest hill nomic aspects of soil erosion: In 1842 he commented: We have here in
may be ploughed, a single furrow left open to the wash, except the last New Hampshire many extensive farms once fertile, that scarcely now by
one, and the saving in the strength of the team, and in the value of the their products pay for the labor employed upon them. Look at many of
crop, which will arise from the extra goodness of the ploughing, will doubly our hill-tops, rendered entirely barren by a long course of wasteful cultiva-
compensate for the loss of time (Drown and Drown, 1824, p. 49). As a tion, united with the ordinary action of winds and rain. Do we not hear the
further method to control soil erosion they advocated the method of voice of help crying to us from such grounds? (Hill, 1842). He believed that
“alternate husbandry” which would today be called crop rotation every new country passed through a cycle of soil exploitation. All areas
(Drown and Drown, 1824, p. 83). of the United States had either gone through this period or would do so
shortly after being put under cultivation. He feared that New England
5.2.5. John Taylor (1753–1824) might suffer the same fate as Virginia and Maryland; and when he trav-
At the same time, John Taylor had two large farms and was active in eled through Virginia to Delaware, he commented on the general land
different societies such as “Promoting Agriculture in Philadelphia and abandonment: whole districts of country have been abandoned as sterile;
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 17

and he who travels through this country in many directions would suppose methods of cultivation and promoted lime (marling) as a fertilizer of de-
the greater part of the country had never been capable of producing ordi- graded soils. He was probably the first to carry out detailed studies on
nary crops. (Hill, 1843). Just like almost every other progressive agricul- runoff and sedimentation, but he did not offer too many details on as-
turist of his time, Hill favored various methods to prevent soil erosion pects preventing soil erosion on hillslopes (Ruffin, 1832). Ruffin made
including protecting manure from the rain, subsoil plowing, crop rota- a big effort to build a better agrarian system, but most of his activities
tion, and the planting of grass or trees on steep slopes (McDonald, failed. However, Edmund Ruffin's hard toil ended the pioneering stage
1941). of the erosion-control movement in America. His work was equal to
that of all his predecessors combined and his erosion-control practices
5.2.9. Nicholas Sorsby (mid-nineteenth century) provided a foundation for later developments (McDonald, 1941).
Nicholas Sorsby was a trained physician but a farmer by choice in
Alabama and Mississippi. Sorsby defined gullies as open water- 5.2.11. Charles Lyell (1797–1875)
channels, caused by rain water and care-less up and down hill plowing. The English geologist Charles Lyell (1797–1875) traveled to the
They are hideous objects to the eye of a scientific and practical farmer, United States and Canada in the 1840s and wrote two popular travel-
and should receive the condemnation of all good husbandmen. There are and-geology books. Throughout his geological studies, he realized that
many ways of filling them up, but in doing so, sometimes two are made freshly incised gullies provided excellent exposures for his geological
in place of one, unless it be properly done and aided by the horizontal cul- and paleontological surveys. During his second visit, he also traveled
ture. The land requires to be well graded and the direction of the water through the southeastern part of the USA and reflected on their geolog-
changed, and not be permitted to flow so abundantly down the gullies as ical formation. In January 1846, he moved through the neighborhood of
before (Sorsby, 1860, p. 24). He developed a new system of horizontal Milledgeville in Georgia where he wrote a detailed description about
plowing to prevent soil erosion that considered variations in crop, the process of gullying and made a drawing (Fig. 14, pm 5-3). He
slope, and soil type (Sorsby, 1860). This method was probably practiced wrote: Twenty years ago it had no existence; but when the trees of the for-
neither in Europe nor in the United States until the nineteenth century. est were cut down, cracks three feet […], during the rains, a sudden rush of
By 1850, however, it was widely practiced in the southern states, from water […] caused them to deepen at their lower extremities, from whence
North Carolina to Mississippi. Gullies received special treatment from the excavating power worked backwards […] (Suppl. 3.7, p. 28). This
Sorsby: they had to be filled by hand with shrubs, pieces of rails, turf, drawing, which is published in his second volume of the book “A Second
or other waste matter. Earth was piled up on top and the surface leveled. Visit to the United States of North America” (Lyell, 1850, p. 29) is prob-
No gully was to be tolerated either along fence lines or old plantation ably one of the oldest scientific drawings of a gully. Lyell also described
roads. For larger gullies, stakes should be driven down and oak boards some other gullied sites and prepared detailed descriptions about their
should be placed against them to hold back soil and water. Thereafter, locations, formation processes, sizes, and ages (cf. Suppl. 3.7).
the rows were curved in such a way that as little water as possible
could accumulate in the old gully (Sorsby, 1860) (Fig. 13). Sorsby
seemed to have been unaware that this practice might also cause new
gullies rather than preventing its expansion (McDonald, 1941).

5.2.10. Edmund Ruffin (1794–1865)

Edmund Ruffin (1794–1865) had a farm in Virginia and was the
most outstanding agricultural reformer of the pre-Civil War period be-
cause his essays were read by more farmers and owners of large estates
than any other agricultural book of the nineteenth century (McDonald,
1941). With respect to soil erosion, he observed the ecological and eco-
nomic effects of soil exhaustion and flooding. He adopted Taylor's

Fig. 13. Sorby's plan with horizontal plowing methods for diversified erosion control on Fig. 14. A gully near Milledgeville, Georgia (pm 5-3) drawn by Charles Lyell in 1846 which
his farm in Mississippi (Sorsby, 1860). is one of the oldest drawings of a gully with a scientific purpose (Lyell, 1850, p. 29).
18 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

5.3. The development of scientific soil erosion and soil conservation research into the reddish hard-pan underlying the loam, which cannot serve the
in the USA soil (Hilgard, 1860, p. 260). But finally Hilgard observed that soil erosion
continued and “the [sandy] materials thus removed cover over the fertile
Farmers like Eliot, Taylor, Jefferson, and others covered above obvi- branch bottoms, in company with a flood of sand, which renders them
ously had been concerned with soil erosion and were engaged in exper- useless for all time to come” (Hilgard, 1860, p. 293) (cf. Suppl. 3.9).
imentation for the purpose of conserving soils in eastern North America. Such legacy sediments can be observed at many floodplain sites in the
However, the interest in geomorphic legacies of soil erosion in the past southeastern USA today (Fig. 15, pm 5-4). Hilgard also realized the
became more prominent in the middle of the nineteenth century. At this physical causes of gullying and provided explanations on why some
time, mapping of the geology and agriculture became increasingly more soils are more vulnerable to soil erosion than others and elucidated
important and, occasionally, descriptions on soil erosion or gully forms the process of gullying. He wrote: It is highly important […] to prevent
were made. the washes from penetrating the [shallow] loam into the underlying sand
In the state of Mississippi, for example, an area that was settled in or hardpan. […], the moment the water reaches it, an undermining process
the early nineteenth century, three reports were published in only the will begin, which will cause the land to waste with greatly increased rapid-
first decade after 1850. No records on soil erosion and gullying were in- ity. Should it, on the contrary, be an impervious hardpan, as is very fre-
cluded in the first report (Wailes, 1854). Harper (1857), who produced quently the case, the increased mass and velocity of the water will rapidly
the second report on the geology and agriculture in Mississippi, also uti- widen its channel, casting away the sides of the gully (Hilgard, 1860,
lized the potential of exposed gully walls for geological investigations. In p. 295). About 25 years later, Hilgard (1884) compiled a report on cot-
his report, several drawings of gully walls are described. Unfortunately, ton production in Mississippi (cf. Suppl. 3.10). Regarding the effects of
he used them to describe the geological formations only. But the at- tillage he stated: But the actual extent of the damage done by this
tached cross-sectional figures give a good idea about the situation washing and final gullying of the hillside slopes, with the final undercut-
(Suppl. 3.8). He also employed the township numbers to describe the ting into underlying sands and the bodily descent of the upland soil into
locations of the investigated sites, which would be very helpful for the valleys, mingling with a flood of sand, which renders useless alike the
retrieval of information today. hills and the valleys, must be seen to be appreciated (Hilgard, 1884,
The most comprehensive reports on the geology and agriculture p. 77). In this context he made detailed analyses on how cotton pro-
(and soil conditions) in Mississippi were carried out by Eugen duction indirectly provided rates of soil degradation. He summa-
Woldemar Hilgard. He was a state geologist between 1858 and 1873 rized: The seed-cotton product per acre of fresh land is 800 pounds;
CE and later became a very famous and highly honored geologist in after five years' cultivation the product is 400 pounds. More than one-
the whole of the USA (Slate, 1919; Amundson and Yaalon, 1995; half such land lies turned out and cannot be reclaimed (Hilgard, 1884,
Amundson, 2006). In his first report, he frequently provided informa- p. 111).
tion about hillslope erosion and gullying (cf. Suppl. 3.9). For example, It is evident that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries farmers
he wrote about the Bluff Formation (western loess uplands in northern and later also scientists were aware of the causes and effects of soil ero-
Mississippi): It generally caps the hills, and also forms their talus, while on sion. At this time no laws or official policies existed to prevent further
the brow of the hills, where the level breaks off, the calcareous loam of the soil erosion, and there was no support by the state to regenerate eroded
bluff formation is generally near to, and sometimes at, the surface; the same areas. McDonald (1941, p. 38) pointed out that in spite of the numerous
is the case, of course, in washes and gullies on the hillsides (Hilgard, 1860, and varied suggestions of more or less practical recommendations on
p. 204). For the area of the east Monroe and Tombigbee valley he also soil conservation, they were barely adopted by farmers because they ar-
described tunnel erosion: The loam stratum is not very thick, however, gued that it was impractical or an insult to their ancestors or that it was
and being underlaid by loose sands, it caves and washes away badly not suitable for the area. Probably to American farmers it appeared as
on the hillsides (on which extensive gullies are often formed), though though they had access to unlimited areas of land and it was hard to be-
otherwise possessing, to a considerable extent, the advantage of being lieve that fertile land could become scarce (McDonald, 1941, p. 19). As a
underdrained by the pervious sands (Hilgard, 1860, p. 257). Hilgard also result, in the second half of the nineteenth century, large proportions of
depicted the formation of sunken roads. In general, he saw the urgent land were already taken out of cultivation because of severe soil degra-
problems of soil erosion and developed several methods of how to pre- dation because of the depletion of nutrients, soil erosion, and other eco-
vent hillslope erosion and gullying. He suggested deep plowing and nomic issues (Usher, 1923; McDonald, 1941). At first, this took place in
leveling methods as have already been described by Nicholas Sorsby many areas of the initially settled colonies in New England (Cronon,
(see above). Interestingly, Hilgard saw some advantages of soil erosion. 2003) but later it spread into other areas soon after land reclamation
He stated the washings from the loam and sand hills often greatly improve in the south and mideastern as well as in the western parts of the
heavy prairie soil […] but the washes must not to be allowed to penetrate USA. For example, around 20,000 km2 of formerly cultivated land was

Fig. 15. Typical situation of legacy sediment covering the dark clayey soil in a floodplain (Black Belt) near the Pontotoc Ridge (northeastern Mississippi, pm 5-4). Compared to the original
soil profiles of the adjacent upland, the legacy sediments form an inverted stratum. It is a gradual accumulation of basal materials derived from lower soil horizons of the hillslopes (picture
taken on 25.02.2007 by the author).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 19

Fig. 16. Ravine which appears to have started from a wagon track trough the pasture. Four miles west of Abbeville in northern Mississippi (Lentz et al., 1929) (pm 5-5).

heavily eroded and laid idle in the uplands of the southern states at the uplands. While the southeast and southern central parts of the USA
turn of the nineteenth to twentieth centuries (Ashe, 1909). were devastated by water erosion and sedimentation, the southern
The first political actions came in 1897 with the foundation of the plain states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado were devastated
“Division of Soil of the United States Department of Agriculture”, and by wind erosion (Romkens, 2010).
in 1899, with the “National Cooperative Soil Survey”. The Division of
Soil Erosion was established in 1908, and surveys brought scientific 5.4. The birth of modern soil erosion and soil conservation research in the
and political awareness for soil erosion and soil conservation USA
(Harding, 1947). Several bulletins and textbooks on various aspects of
soil degradation (including methods on soil conservation) were pub- After the massive cumulation of extreme events in the 1930s, the
lished (e.g., Fenneman, 1908; Ashe, 1909; Lowe, 1910; McGee, 1911; need for soil conservation was nationally recognized as an urgent
Davis, 1915; Torrance, 1919; Ramser, 1922; Bennett and Chapline, task; and the Soil Erosion Service was set up by the Department of Inte-
1928; Crosby, 1928; Bates and Zeasman, 1930; Sinclair, 1931). In some rior in 1933 and renamed Soil Conservation Service in the U.S.
counties very detailed “Erosion Reports” were published, partly with Department of Agriculture in 1934. Under the leadership of Hugh
comprehensive information on soils, size and degradation of eroded Hammond Bennett, who was an entrepreneur in soil conservation
areas, legacy sediments, farming activities, forest condition, abandoned (Helms, 2010), a nationwide action program was initiated with many
land, and economic conditions. For example, the soil erosion report for demonstration areas in several states of the USA. Many further text-
Lafayette County in northern Mississippi shows that about 27% of the books and guides on soil conservation had been published during the
county was affected by soil erosion in 1929 and about 8.5% of the land following decades (Hall, 1937; Bennett, 1939; Ireland et al., 1939;
was abandoned because of soil erosion (Lentz et al., 1929). The reports Jacks and Whyte, 1939; Gottschalk, 1945; Mickey, 1945; Bennett,
contain large assortments of high quality photographs of badlands and 1949; Woodburn, 1949; Lowdermilk, 1953; Wilken, 1987). Many differ-
gullied areas (Fig. 16 (pm 5-5) and Fig. 17 (pm 5-6)). ent techniques were established and evaluated including strip farming,
However, despite the reports, still no or very little coordinated or terraces, masonry structures, log and plank dams, various styles of
systematic effort existed by farmers, institutions, or the government to gully plugs, sod strips in excavated channels and, finally, solid grass
address this issue. The catastrophe that had been unfolding in the sods in natural depressions as well as the construction of terraces at
State of Mississippi reached its climax with the destructive 1927 flood experimental or demonstration stations (Fig. 18, pm 5-7 and Fig. 19,
in the lower Mississippi River basin, caused by extreme and prolonged pm 5-8). Under the coordination of the Soil Conservation Service, the
rainfall in the catchment. The runoff led to severe soil erosion in the Civil Conservation Corps continued soil conservation activities beyond

Fig. 17. Silt and sand deposits in a ravine. This is an old break, now about 300–400 ft across and a mile or more long. Three miles west of Abbeville in northern Mississippi (Lentz et al.,
1929) (pm 5-6).
20 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

the stations, and farmers were invited to attend conservation programs. (e.g. Geiger, 1955; Johnson and Papendick, 1968; Helms and Flader,
Further activities like the planting of pine trees (mostly the fast growing 1985; Trimble, 1985; Williston, 1988; Argabright et al., 1995, 1996;
loblolly pine (Pinus taeda)), black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), or Nelson, 1997; Showers, 2005; Romkens, 2010).
kudzu (Pueraria montana) were promoted (Bailey, 1946), particularly
in severely eroded areas like badlands and larger gully systems. Kudzu 6. Central and South America, and the Caribbean
has since become a serious problem because it is a very fast growing
plant that climbs on trees, poles, and buildings. In 1970 it was officially In Pre-Columbian South America, an important area for early agri-
labeled a weed. Kudzu currently covers 3 million ha throughout culture is the humid central Peruvian Andes region located at the
the eastern United States and is spreading at a rate of 50,000 ha/y heart of the formerly dominating Incan civilization (1440–1534 CE).
(Forseth and Innis, 2004). Additionally, the subsequently established The first forest clearings by their ancestors started around 5000 years
flood prevention programs also included many actions in soil con- ago and early evidence for farming dates back around 4000 years
servation. Several of these programs and their associated case stud- (Chepstow-Lusty et al., 1998). In the last decades, a second region
ies, including an evaluation of the successes or failings of these with agricultural evidence is the Amazonian basin where unexpectedly
actions, were published (e.g. Wilkerson et al., 1972; Williston, 1988; complex regional settlement patterns and field systems dating to be-
Barnhardt, 1989; Pasquill, 2008). Some gullied areas or badlands were tween 400 and 1600 CE have been revealed (Denevan, 1996, 2001;
also bought by the state and utilized for recreation, nature conservation, Heckenberger et al., 2003; Lombardo and Prümers, 2010). In Meso-
education, and research. The Providence Canyon in Georgia (pm 5-9), america, plant domestication extended from semihumid central Mexico
which was already pointed out by Bennett (1939, figures on p. 4 and to humid Guatemala and dates back around 7000 years (Beach et al.,
p. 66), is a prominent and well described example for the history of 2006a; Williams, 2006). Humans arrived at the Caribbean islands
land use and soil erosion in the south-eastern USA (Donovan and around 6000 to 5000 years ago, and the introduction of agriculture
Reinhardt, 1986; Magilligan and Stamp, 1997; Hyatt and Gilbert, has been estimated to have occurred about 2000 years ago, but this
2000; Firestone et al., 2007; Sutter, 2010). The history of the develop- varies greatly from island to island (Beach et al., 2006a). With the ex-
ment of the USDA Soil Conservation Service and its partly controversial ception of the Amazonian basin, the settled areas often lie on temperate
role in the development of modern soil erosion and soil conservation highlands where the river valleys tended to be narrow. The interior-
research have been described in several papers and book chapters drained basins were also difficult to farm because they were poorly

Fig. 18. A medium-sized gully on the South Tyger River Project (pm 5-7) in northwest South Carolina before and after the treatment in 1934 (Wilkerson et al., 1972, p. 18).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 21

trampling of the fields were documented (Whitmore and Turner,

1992). Continuing until today, soil erosion has always been a serious
problem, and modern soil conservation techniques are lacking or are
often poorly implemented. However, some positive examples of soil
conservation exist that are often connected to traditional land manage-
ment systems. In Peru for example, many of the agricultural terraces
have been continually used until the twentieth century. But today, so-
cioeconomic reasons prompted the abandonment of many terraced
areas, thereby increasing soil erosion after the structures collapsed
(Inbar and Llerena, 2000).
With regard to historical records on the perception of soil erosion,
very little research has been published that demonstrates early descrip-
tions or soil conservation strategies by farmers before the mid-
twentieth century. Probably the oldest description was recorded by
Charles Darwin. During his journey through South America, he carried
out analyses of the effect of 200 years of land use change on the ecosys-
tems of Patagonia, Brazil, Tierra del Fuego, and Chile (Darwin, 1839). His
observations described the devastating impact of droughts and cattle
grazing on the land, desertification in Argentina, and how these factors
affected erosion and sedimentation processes. Imeson (2009) remarked
that his geomorphological process experiments were largely the same
methods and techniques that are used today. Few case studies on envi-
ronmental history include the perception of soil erosion during the early
conquest period. For instance, Watts (1987) showed several examples
of historical accounts of soil erosion and gullying in the West Indies.
Some studies focus on the long term effects of soil erosion to soil fertility
and associated economic consequences. Such a causality chain has re-
cently been revealed for cotton production in Brazil during the mid-
twentieth century (Brannstrom, 2010).

7. Australia
Fig. 19. A gully plug was set in concrete by the Civil Conservation Corps, probably in the
1930s, to prevent further gully head retreat (northern Mississippi, pm 5-8). Since then, Australia was sparsely populated before the arrival of the Europeans
the gully has deepened and widened. Today water slowly undercuts the plug and head re- about 200 years ago. The aboriginal hunters and gatherers did not grow
treat may occur again. The surrounding area is covered with Kudzu (picture taken on
15.02.1999 by the author).
crops and had no grazing livestock. However, their influence on the en-
vironment was not to be dismissed because they used repeated burning
of the vegetation to enhance their hunting efficiency (Bird et al., 2005).
drained and frost-prone due to cold air (Donkin, 1979). Consequently, Studies in the Mediterranean showed that such vegetation removal ac-
slope cultivation has a long tradition and was enhanced by terracing celerates soil erosion (Shakesby, 2011), but no detailed research has
to prevent soil erosion. Such an investment would have been undertak- been carried out in this context for the pre-European period in Australia
en at a local level, even by individual households (Whitmore and so far. Studies of archeological sites indicate an increase in sediment ac-
Turner, 2001, p. 133). Terraces in southern and central America are cumulation that coincided with the initial occupation of these camp
very old, and their construction had begun as early as 300–200 BCE in sites (Hughes and Sullivan, 1986). However, any increase in soil erosion
Mexico and at the latest around 200 BCE in the central Andes (Donkin, associated with disturbance of vegetation around these sites would
1979; Ojha, 1997). However, terraces with ages of up to 4000 years have been of local extent and therefore unlikely to have had an impact
have been found in South America (Sandor, 2006). Despite the con- at a regional scale (Scott, 2001, p. 8).
struction of terraces and the good knowledge on soil management, geo- With the arrival of the Europeans and the introduction of agriculture,
morphological and archeological studies have shown that many areas of rapid land use changes took place and accelerated soil erosion occurred
these ancient cultures experienced soil erosion; and several authors (Prosser and Winchester, 1996; Scott, 2001; Saxton et al., 2012). In ad-
have proclaimed that agricultural soil exhaustion caused or triggered dition, the fast growing wild rabbit population, after their introduction
the collapse of ancient civilizations (cf. Beach et al. (2006a) for an elab- in the mid-nineteenth century, also triggered soil erosion due to the se-
orated discussion on soil erosion and the collapse of ancient civilizations verely depleted vegetation cover (Edwards, 1993). Soil erosion by water
in Mesoamerica). became especially critical in southeastern Australia and Queensland.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish conquest Geomorphic studies demonstrated that in the first 25 years after the
spread swiftly throughout Mesoamerica and South America, claiming arrival of sheep in the catchment of the New England Tablelands of
land and labor. At the same time, rapid depopulation of the indigenous northeast New South Wales, erosion rates increased by a factor of over
people took place. The Spanish reconstituted agriculture through the in- 50. Then it decreased because a new drainage network equilibrium de-
troduction of European technologies, but in contrast to North America veloped that reduced soil loss to a low and stable level (Gale and
they often retained the indigenous crops and cropping techniques. Ulti- Haworth, 2005). In northern Australia, the erosion rate increased by be-
mately, the resulting reconfigured agricultural areas were not too differ- tween 4 and 33 times on average for agricultural lands compared to nat-
ent from their previous state but they were modified by exchanges in urally vegetated areas (Lu et al., 2003). On the south coast of New South
biota and technology (Whitmore and Turner, 1992). However, the pop- Wales, accelerated runoff led to hillslope erosion, gullying, and valley
ulation explosion and the increase of grazing animals early in the six- incisions (Fryirs and Brierley, 1999). A lack of substantial sediment de-
teenth century accelerated soil erosion on agricultural lands, increased position over the last 20 to 40 years is evidence for a significant drop
siltation, and triggered more frequent and profound flooding events. in sediment yields in the investigated areas of New South Wales
Significant losses owing to the rampant herds and the physical (Rustomji and Pietsch, 2007). For example, in the catchment of the
22 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

Fig. 20. The area around the Providence Canyon in Georgia (pm 5-9), was already highlighted by Bennett in the 1930s as an example of severe gullying on former farmland in SE-USA
(Bennett, 1939, p. 4, reprint with permission from McGraw-Hill Higher Education). The gully system is still very active despite the implementation of a soil conservation program including
the reforesting of the catchment. The Google Earth image below displays the present-day situation.

Murrumbidgee River, NSW, degradation of the vegetated valley bot- attention to wind erosion in the pastoral areas and the seriousness of
toms by introduced livestock in the 1840s and 1850s triggered a mas- water erosion in the cereal belt in South Australia (Soil Conservation
sive phase of gully erosion over the next 40 to 50 years because the Commitee, 1939). The outcome was “The Soil Conservation Act 1939”
erosion rates in the headwater areas increased by a factor of nearly that defined measures to enforce soil conservation. The first extensive
245. Since the gully networks have reached maximum extension, sedi- textbook about soil erosion and soil conservation in Australia and New
ment yields from the headwater areas declined by a factor of around Zealand was published in 1946 (Holmes, 1946).
40 and are now estimated to be about six times the pre-European
rates (Olley and Wasson, 2003). 8. New Zealand
With respect to historical records on the perception of soil erosion,
no studies have been published so far. However, in the 1930s, after The prehistoric land use history in New Zealand that had a profound
about 150 years of exploitive agriculture, scientific and governmental influence on the local ecosystem began with the arrival of Polynesians
interest in soil erosion rose because of the severity of the problem. Con- (Māori) around 1280 CE (Wilmshurst et al., 2008). Paleoecological
cern for soil conservation in the United States during the 1930s also records show that both islands of New Zealand had been extensively
gave rise to a soil conservation movement in Australia as well as in forested before human settlement. During 500 years of prehistoric oc-
New Zealand. In 1936 a special meeting of Agricultural Ministers from cupation, up to 40% of the forest was lost by burning (McWethy et al.,
the States and the Commonwealth decided that each State should 2009). Prehistoric Polynesian agriculture in New Zealand relied on
form a committee, in conjunction with the Council for Scientific and In- non-cereal starch staples produced through a variety of wet and dry
dustrial Research (now CSIRO), to assess the problem and make recom- field-cropping methods (Kirch, 1994). At many of the occupied sites,
mendations. The first report was published in 1939 with particular the Māori left archeological remains that are in stratigraphic association
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 23

with natural deposits such as dunes, alluvial deposits, shoreline sedi- silt (Hill, 1938). The fear of further, similar burial of farmland was
ments, and lagoon muds (McFadgen, 2007). The Māori used a variety deep-seated among sections of the farming community. Several reports
of soil management systems including terraces and plaggen soils highlighted the severity of soil erosion and the need of soil conservation
(McFadgen, 2007). However, very little research has been done on the (Mather, 1982). In 1941, the Soil Conservation Act and River Control Act
soil conservation methods by the Māori and little is known if and to in New Zealand were signed. The first textbook about soil erosion and
what extent prehistoric farming accelerated soil erosion. We can as- soil conservation was published in 1946 (Holmes, 1946). Further
sume that the loss of forest cover on hillsides produced large amounts books with a particular focus on New Zealand became available in
of sediments, but their distinction from natural mass movement pro- 1947 (Cumberland, 1947) and the following years (Campbell, 1951;
cesses triggered by earthquakes is difficult (personal communication, Anonymous, 1965). An extensive overview about the changing percep-
Bruce McFadgen, 2012). However, Horrocks et al. (2008) were able to tion of soil erosion in New Zealand is given in Mather (1982).
show that a loss of forest cover on the steep, easily eroded mudstone
soils at Anaura Bay (pm 8-1) resulted in an extremely accelerated rate 9. Easter Island (Rapa Nui)
of sheet erosion, carrying sediments into the valleys and onto the
plain. McWethy et al. (2009) investigated sediment cores from five The environmental history of Easter Island (in Polynesian language,
lakes located on the deforested eastern side of the Southern Alps that Rapa Nui) has been received by many scholars as an outstanding exam-
documented the local fire history of the last 1000 years and the re- ple of the negative effects of human-induced environmental degrada-
sponse of vegetation and watersheds to burning. The results suggest tion in a sensitive ecosystem and their ecological and socioeconomic
that one or more high severity fires occurred within a few decades of effects (e.g. Diamond, 2006; de la Croix and Dottori, 2008; Good and
initial Māori arrival, which caused the majority of the forest losses and Reuveny, 2009). Over the last few years, several studies have been car-
soil erosion. ried out, focusing on the history of soil erosion and soil conservation
With the European arrival in the nineteenth century CE, large areas that show a much more complex relationship than had previously
of New Zealand were quickly exploited for sheep farming. Slash-and- been suggested (Mieth and Bork, 2005; Stevenson et al., 2006).
burn practices were used to remove thorny shrubs and to promote According to stratigraphic investigations, the beginning of human set-
the growth of palatable shoots of the main tussock-grass species tlement on Easter Island dates between 300 and 600 CE. The agriculture
(O'Connor, 1982). Observations on the effects of grazing to soil erosion was characterized by sustainable land use and a traditional type of agro-
were already reported in 1858. Alexander Garvie, the principal assistant forestry and soil erosion was not significant. This situation changed
to the Chief Surveyor of the Province of Otago wrote: A very great deal of around 1280 CE when the main endemic palm (Jubaea spec.) was
mischief may be done by reckless and unseasonable burnings. A great deal cleared by slashing and burning to promote intensive farming on the
of the pasture in and around the Otago Block has been much deteriorated upper slopes of the peninsula. Soil erosion occurred; and settlements
by this cause (Beattie, 1947). During the following decades, several and ceremonial places, which had been built one century earlier on
reports described the problems of livestock grazing, but no evidence downslope areas, were soon buried by sediments. Agriculture ceased
has been found that public servants followed these warnings (Mather, around 1400 CE on downslope areas as the fertile soils became
1982). As a result, after several decades soil erosion and large gullied completely eroded (Mieth and Bork, 2005). Since ancient agriculture
badlands spread over the whole of New Zealand. on Easter Island is dependent upon suitable soil conditions, the decline
The scientific and political awareness of soil erosion and soil conser- in soil fertility had dramatic socioeconomic consequences. A set of agri-
vation began in 1938, triggered by a number of events and circum- cultural innovations was introduced to counteract these negative ef-
stances. In early 1938, severe floods occurred in the Gisbome and Esk fects. These developments included the use of a surface lithic mulch
valley areas on the east coast of the North Island and resulted in the (stone mulching) to facilitate water permeability, significantly reduce
burial of extensive areas of settled farmland beneath thick deposits of evaporation, and protect the soils from erosion (pm 9-1, Fig. 21). In

Fig. 21. Stone mulching at the Akahanga south coast on Easter Island as an endemic soil conservation method to prevent soil erosion (pm 9-1) (picture taken on 05.07.2009, courtesy
of H.-R. Bork).
24 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

addition, rocks were placed within gardens as protection from wind, mulching practices on Easter Island, are evident legacies of the occur-
and gardens were placed at the base of slopes that benefited from sur- rence and awareness of soil erosion during prehistorical periods.
face water runoff (Bork et al., 2004; Ladefoged et al., 2013). Gullying The earliest available historical documents that could be related to
began with the sudden increase in the number of sheep during the soil erosion are from Greece and China and go back about 2500 years.
early twentieth century, and the gullies are still extending on the island They describe the problem of deforestation, the effects of soil erosion,
today. This continuous enlargement created extended badlands that and partly also their consequences to farming. For the following two
generate significant problems for ecological and archeological conserva- millennia, many observations of environmental degradation are docu-
tion strategies (Mieth and Bork, 2005). mented in China, most of which are related to floods. At the end of the
first millennium CE, the number of reports about floods increased for
the Chinese Loess Plateau. This correlates also with accelerated soil ero-
10. Discussion sion and gullying indicated by geomorphic evidence. This general corre-
lation between historical descriptions and geomorphic signals is also
Many of today's landscapes are a product of agriculturally induced or apparent for the following centuries until Modern Times. However,
human-accelerated soil erosion. McNeill and Winiwarter (2004) sum- the majority of the historical descriptions about soil erosion are assump-
marized that on a global scale agriculturally induced soil erosion oc- tions and not direct observations. Also, the existing geomorphological
curred in three main waves: the first wave began around the second studies are mostly very general and it is often problematic to link
millennium BCE, as a consequence of the expansion of societies based them with historical records.
on farming who left river basins (Yellow River, Indus, Tigris–Euphrates) In contrast to China, only a few historical descriptions about soil-
or lowlands and moved into areas with steeper slopes. Over the next erosion-related environmental degradations are available for the
3000 years, rates of soil erosion increased because farmers in Eurasia, Mediterranean and the rest of Europe from the period of ancient
Africa, and the Americas gradually converted a moderate proportion Greece until the seventeenth century CE. The first indirect evidence
of the world's forests into farmland or pasture. The second wave took came from Greece and dates back to the middle of the first millennium
place during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries with the introduction BCE. For Roman Times, the geomorphic evidence shows controversial
of stronger and sharper plowshares, which helped to break the sod of results ranging from massive devastation to stable landscapes over
the South American pampas, Eurasian steppe, and the North American centuries in the agricultural zones of the Roman Empire. The almost
prairies. The emigration of Europeans to the Americas, Australia, New complete absence of historical records on soil erosion in Roman
Zealand, Siberia, South Africa, Algeria, and elsewhere accelerated the ex- sources is remarkable in contrast to the vast amount of material on soil
pansion of land use in semiarid and semihumid areas that are more vul- management. This contradiction plays a crucial role in the discussion
nerable to soil erosion. The third wave coincided with rapid population about soil exhaustion versus sustainable land use during Roman Times.
growth after the mid-twentieth century when people started to clear Some historians are not convinced that soil degradation was an im-
rainforests and steep areas to exploit wood for timber or fuel or to ex- portant causative factor for the general deterioration of the Roman
pand agricultural land (McNeill and Winiwarter, 2004). However, this world. They understand the areas of soil degradation around ancient
three-wave concept should be qualified as very general because it Rome and Athens as solely local phenomena. Instead, large new tracts
does not reflect the local and regional land use periods with phases of land were converted into permanently cultivated fields throughout
of intensive soil erosion, particularly for the early history of soil erosion. the second and the third centuries CE. They argued that the fertility of
Indeed, the introduction of the iron plowshares in the second wave the soil was rarely endangered because the plows and other agricultural
(sixteenth to nineteenth centuries) was important to break the sod tools were not strong enough to cause soil degradation. Particularly
quickly in the New World, but the exploitation of this land would not Grove and Rackham (2003, p. 311) argue against human activity as
have been possible without the cultural spread, including export econ- being the prime cause for soil erosion in Mediterranean Europe because
omies, extended trade networks, navigation, etc., as well as the advent the misaligned or not existing correspondence between land use history
of the mechanical age (water power, saw mills, rag pumps for mining, and alluviation pattern. They present several examples that show a
etc.). Also the substantial clearance of forests for timber and the intro- decline of alluviation, which is claimed to be a proxy for soil erosion
duction of grazing and draft animals contributed to soil erosion, but during phases of increasing land use intensity. This contradictory be-
they were largely independent from iron plowshares. Actually, the havior is particularly evident for the last hundred years and has been
history of soil erosion evolves in a very complex manner with high discussed also for alluvial plains in central Europe (e.g. Fuchs et al.,
variations in space and time. Local and regional variations in natural 2011; Matys Grygar et al., 2011). Grove and Rackham (2003) also
situations, cultural traditions, socioeconomic conditions, and the occur- claimed that deforestation in the Mediterranean does not make erosion
rence and the frequency of extreme precipitation events have played a worse because trees grow again. Grazing by goats and sheep is not bad,
major role in the dynamic and rates of soil erosion in a long-term because it renders vegetation less vulnerable to wildfires. Badlands,
perspective. where erosional features dominate, are stable landscapes. They point
The anthropogenic removal of the natural woodland varied greatly out that the environmental situation of Mediterranean landscape in
geographically, in early prehistorical times and for early civilizations, the mid-twentieth century CE was little worse than it had been at the
such as in China, South Asia, Mesopotamia, and much of the Mediterra- end of the Bronze Age (cf. discussion in Williams, 2003, pp. 95–100;
nean. The agricultural transition began from various hearths at different Hughes, 2011).
times and arrived in hinterlands at different rates by various processes However, such a conclusion neglects several issues if alluviation pro-
of diffusion, migration, or conquest. The presented summaries of the cesses and linear correlations are considered for reconstruction soil ero-
geomorphological and archeological studies show that in prehistory sion on a long-term time scale not only for Mediterranean Europe:
most of the cultivated landscapes on slopes were affected by soil
erosion, but these are mostly interpreted as local phenomena. Clear ev- • Essentially, the correlation pattern of soil erosion and alluviation is
idences are given that pre-colonial agricultural societies in Africa, Amer- nonlinear. Sediments that have been eroded are primarily stored in
ica, New Zealand, or on Easter Island caused soil erosion to such a degree sinks between the slope and the floodplain. These sinks could be
that significant long-term consequences to soil fertility and other eco- footslope positions, slight depressions in an undulating landscape, or
system services may have been brought about. However, it is often un- terraces. Whenever one sink is filled, the material could be removed
known if soil erosion was a dominant driving force for the decline in and stored repeatedly until it reaches the floodplain. This cascading
population. Soil protection strategies, particularly the construction of effect from slope to channel causes a time lag in alluviation and de-
field terraces, but also very individual local strategies like the stone pends on the magnitudes of precipitation events (Lang et al., 2003).
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 25

800 - 0 years before present

It is also influenced by natural and human factors including land use,

Surface soil erosion (χfd/kg)

1430 - 800 years before present
field structures, and soil conservation strategies. As a result, climatic 2960 - 1430 years before present
impacts are only recorded in alluvial sediments when human activi-
ties (e.g. deforestation) and rainfall thresholds for gullying are C Steady degraded
exceeded (Lang et al., 2003). Consequently, floodplains may reflect re- state
Threshold
gional trends in land use changes and climate but they are not quali-
fied as a single source to reconstruct past soil erosion.
• The construction of field terraces for irrigation or soil conservation
E Transition state

created barriers in the landscape that can act as sinks for sediment. B (~ 600 years)

After abandonment, these structures are no longer maintained and

may collapse. Depending on the slope gradient and the density of D Threshold
Steady nondegraded
state
the protective vegetation cover, the stored sediment may be released A
quickly by runoff (Koulouri and Giourga, 2007). Also, the recurrent
burning of scrubland to improve grassland quality may result in in- Disturbed land (% nonarboreal pollen)
creased soil erosion for some months (García-Ruiz and Lana-
Renault, 2011). As a result, the signal of colluviation and possible Fig. 23. Processes of coupling and uncoupling between land use (or disturbed land) and soil
alluviation may also occur in periods of low land use intensities. erosion on a long-term time scale in the Erhai lake-catchment, Yunnan, SW China, modified
• Another uncertainty arises when 14C dates or artifacts are used to date from Dearing (2008, Fig. 7, reprint with permission from SAGE Publications). Here, the data
are used as a general example of the non-linear correspondence between land use and soil
sediments that may have been relocated several times. Most of the
erosion on a long-term time scale. The bivariate plotting of the trajectory shows initially a sit-
older studies in particular did not consider this issue and hence corre- uation in which changes of disturbed land do not cause soil erosion (state A). As soon as a
lated the determined ages with the age of the sediment rather than threshold is exceeded (e.g. by changes in land use or climate), the system changes via a tran-
interpreting them as maximum ages. sitional state (state B) into a new steady state (state C) with fairly linear behavior between
disturbed land and soil erosion. As soon as the land use intensity decreases soil erosion de-
• During the last 100 to 200 years many river systems were increasingly
creases as well, but on a different pathway (state D). Since soil erosion changes the natural
modified. River straightening accelerates runoff and reduces sediment conditions permanently (e.g. decline in soil fertility, reduced water fluxes), the system
deposition along floodplains significantly. Dams to store water or to moves from state C into a new steady state (state E) with permanent geomorphodynamic
produce energy collect sediments in their reservoirs instead of distrib- activity. In state E soil erosion is very active and uncoupled from the disturbed land. Alterna-
uting them along the river system. The increasing implementation of tively, in the case of the total loss of soil and the exposure of hard bedrock, the system may
also move into a state similar to state A (modified figure, copyright: SAGE Publications).
soil conservation strategies may have also been reflected in reduced
alluviation.
• Soil erosion and particularly gullying may also occur on pastures and irreversible within human timescales (Dearing, 2008). Such initially
in areas with high livestock pressure (Trimble and Mendel, 1995). human-induced processes can be observed worldwide, particularly in
This situation is particularly prominent in New Zealand (Mather, semihumid to semiarid and subtropical areas (e.g. the Providence
1982) and Iceland (Simpson et al., 2001) but also in the Mediterra- Canyon in Georgia, Fig. 20).
nean (e.g. Fig. 22) (e.g. Gutierrez et al., 2009).
• The recovery of vegetation on eroded areas is strongly related to soil Indeed, the Romans had a good knowledge of agriculture and lit-
quality, which is a legacy of former land use and the amount of prece- tle is known about the extent of deforestation and the intensity of
dent soil erosion. Severe soil erosion may reduce soil fertility and land use in the ancient world. However, from the lack of historical
change water fluxes so much that it impedes the recovery of woodland evidence, one cannot necessarily conclude the absence of soil erosion
or shrub vegetation. This leads the system into a new equilibrium with and soil degradation. One aspect of this contentious discussion about
permanent geomorphodynamic activity (Fig. 23). The uncoupling be- the lack of historical records could lie in the very nature of soil deg-
tween land use and soil erosion may resist over centuries and cause radation and soil erosion itself. Generally, soil erosion is a subtle pro-
the establishment or rejuvenation of gullies and badlands. The activity cess, and the negative effects often become noticeable only during
or stabilization of such a system is highly nonlinear and essentially longer lasting experiments or observation spans. Also in recent

Fig. 22. Agricultural terraces on Gozo (Malta) (pm 10-1). The collapse of the terrace walls on the right slope released formerly stored sediments. The hill on the left side shows still intact
soils with a thickness of up to 1 m (picture taken on 02.04.2013 by the author).
26 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

history, farmers regularly recognize stones growing in the field in- published essays on farming and most of them considered the problem
stead of realizing a loss of soil (Löll, 1878, p. 723) (cf. Suppl. 2.9). of soil erosion and gave practical instructions for soil conservation. Soil
Only during extreme soil erosion events, including rare catastrophic erosion was so omnipresent that most reports described the situation
gullying, may soil erosion have been recognized as a soil degradation fairly generally. Only few reports like the letters from John Bartram to
process not only by contemporary scholars but by local farmers, too. Jared Eliot in the mid-eighteenth century present more detailed obser-
In addition, little is known if and to what extent political issues were vations on soil erosion. However, the numerous and varied suggestions
a contributing factor to avoid the mentioning of soil erosion. The dis- and practical recommendations on soil conservation were seemingly
cussion about the diverse evidence for soil erosion during Roman barely adopted, and many soils on hillslopes were highly degraded
Times should also include the variety of the natural conditions of and unsalvageably lost for farming after just a few decades of land use
the landscape, climate, farming practices, and soil management (McDonald, 1941, p. 19).
across the Roman Empire. Particularly the implementation of soil In the twentieth century in many countries of the New World, Africa,
conservation or sustainable land use practices may be an and Eurasia, soil remediation and flood prevention programs were initi-
underestimated factor (Dotterweich et al., 2012a). A possible indica- ated with the aim to keep soil and water fluxes at a stable equilibrium.
tor about the importance to avoid of runoff and soil erosion in the Particularly in the first half of the twentieth century did the rise of pro-
Roman Times may be derived from contemporary jurisprudence. fessional soil conservation become an increasingly important issue in
The presented excerpts of the actio aque pluviae arcendae, which the USA. At this time many reports as well as nonscientific books
are referred to in the ‘12 Tables’ or the Digesta could be linked to about global soil erosion were published, stimulating research progress
soil conservation strategies like the construction of runoff ditches, with regard to soil erosion and soil conservation worldwide. Some of
terraced fields, or stone ridges. them, like the report of Jacks and Whyte (1939), seem to be exaggerated
The first observations on floods and related soil erosion events in because they were based on assumptions rather than on scientific ob-
central Europe derive from the late Middle Ages. Particularly the ex- servations or they were of a propagandistic nature (cf. discussion in
treme precipitation events and the subsequent floods in the first half Showers, 2005). It is also unclear if all these actions in the USA since
of the fourteenths century are well documented in several sources. the 1930s are able to halt soil erosion in the long term. Many studies
Some of them describe uniquely disturbed sites, which might be useful show that suspended sediment contributions to river floodplains have
to link them with geomorphic evidence at a distinct locality. Also, clear decreased (e.g., McCarney-Castle et al., 2010), but this also may be a leg-
evidences exist that soil erosion triggered sociopolitical and economic acy effect in the cascading process of the sediments. Some sources in the
realignments at this time. From the seventeenth to nineteenth centu- USA have suggested that recent erosion is as great as or even greater
ries, the number of observations about soil erosion including their neg- than that of the 1930s when the soil conservation effort was begun
ative effects on crops and nutrition increases continuously. In the (Trimble and Crosson, 2000). Similarly debatable situations also occur
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the phenomena are often de- in other regions of the world, like in southern Africa, China, or Australia.
scribed by priests in poems or prayers. Consequently, the causes of run- However, the dramatic environmental degradation in the New
off, floods, and soil erosion at this time were rather associated with a Worlds was not a ubiquitous phenomenon. Positive examples of stable
sinful behavior against god than to warn about the deforestation or settlements exist in which European land use practices were successful-
unsustainable land use (Gerrard and Petley, 2013). ly adopted or integrated into the new systems, such as in Mexico
In the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, soil erosion was (Butzer, 1996; James, 2013). In recent years, an increasing interest oc-
increasingly observed and described by scholars and farmers. In con- curs in the studies of pre-Columbian soil management systems because
trast to earlier sources the descriptions now also contain comments they could be used as a template for developing and evaluating current
about the causes of soil erosion and its long-term effects to the ecosys- and future soil conservation strategies (e.g., Norton et al., 1998; Glaser,
tem. Citations like The inhabitants of Althornbach have become very 2007; Lombardo et al., 2011; Sheil et al., 2012). With respect to
poor and ruined because of the gullying of their fields — as a result, many preventing soil erosion, Wilken (1987) has already accomplished a
people left their country (Hard, 1976, p. 225) can be found in reports wide-ranging study on traditional agriculture in Mexico and Central
from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Reports like America and provided many practical examples on how to adopt this
this are clear evidences that scholars and farmers alike perceived the ef- knowledge to today's farming systems. He suggested, for instance, cre-
fects of gullying. In contrast, the processes of sheet or rill erosion and ating different types of slope terraces. Beach and Dunning (1995) pro-
particularly piping erosion were much less mentioned in such reports. posed that an intensive study of these old conservation methods
This gradually changed in the nineteenth century. The agricultural should be undertaken so that the Mayan conservation ethic could be
essays from Albrecht Daniel Thaer or Friedrich Heusinger show that reintroduced to the people of the region and to others in similar circum-
the subtle process of sheet wash was already well understood. They stances around the world. Also, ancient ridge and furrow field systems
also gave numerous practical examples of how to prevent soil erosion. in the Andes (Erickson, 1992; Denevan, 2001) have already been used
Little is known how widespread this knowledge was among peasants. as an example to reintroduce such systems today (Garaycochea, 1987;
The comment by Löll (1878) who got angry about farmers not under- Muse and Quintero, 1987). Finally, there is an increasing interest to in-
standing the process of soil erosion does not designate a general tegrate native peasants' views in discussions about environmental con-
conclusion. servation and sustainability (e.g. Brannstrom and Oliveira, 2000;
Obviously, most of the Europeans who moved to the colonies in Mulwafu, 2011, p. 207). On the other hand, the adaption and inclusion
America, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand were farmers with good of such ancient soil management systems into modern systems may
soil knowledge. However, they had little know-how on farming and also fail if the social, institutional, or economic aspects are insufficiently
managing a soil sustainably in an absolutely different climate and eco- considered or even ignored (Bandy, 2005).
system. They had to implement their practices to the new environment
by trial and error. Historical documents from the colonies show that 11. Conclusion
many farmers principally used their European philosophy of soil conser-
vation which was not suitable for the new environment. Soil erosion Almost all farming-based cultures in the world, from large civiliza-
and the rapid formation of gully systems and badlands became a wide- tions to peasant groups on little islands, have suffered from soil erosion
spread problem during this period. by water. The amounts of soil erosion varied largely through time and
In the eastern colonies of North America, for example, soil erosion space, and extreme events have left a wide variety of imprints on the
became a serious problem already in the eighteenth century. In the landscape over millennia. Eroded hillslopes and gullies, deposited sedi-
late eighteenth century and in the nineteenth century, several scholars ments in sinks like lakes, footslopes, valleys, floodplains, and river deltas
 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34 27

are geomorphic legacies that have been linked to changes in land use New World, Africa, and Eurasia, soil remediation and flood prevention
and climate by many studies during the last decades. However, a stan- programs were initiated with the aim to keep soil and water fluxes at
dardized analysis and interpretation of these geomorphic legacies are a stable equilibrium. The long-term success of these actions remains
problematic because of the variety of methodological approaches and contentious. Many studies show that suspended sediment contributions
the nonlinearity between soil erosion, climate, and land use. Cascading to river floodplains have decreased while soil erosion on hillslopes is
effects, land use structures, soil management, soil conservation strate- still a serious problem. In contrast, historic examples of stable settle-
gies, and long-term system changes have produced different signals ments exist where European land use practices were successfully
over time. adopted or integrated into the new systems, such as in Mexico. In recent
Historical records are crucial and an invaluable source to provide al- years, an increasing interest has raised to recover the traditional knowl-
ternative proxies about soil erosion in the past. Direct observations of edge of soil management in order to implement it into modern soil con-
individual soil erosion events may restrict the deposition of a distinct servation strategies.
sediment package to a certain time span. They also expand the range In general, the studies show that local and regional variations in nat-
of alternative interpretations, particularly with respect to the long- ural situations, cultural traditions, and socioeconomic conditions played
term effects of soil erosion to ecosystem services and socioeconomic a major role in the dynamics and rates of soil erosion in a long-term per-
processes. However, historical records also need critical analyses re- spective. The strength and frequency of heavy precipitation events have
garding their origin, intention, and quality. They were often created in hardly been investigated yet play an important role with regard to the
the context of personal interests or political issues rather than being occurrence of runoff and soil erosion and their long-term effects on eco-
based on scientific facts; and it is often unclear if they represent certain system services and socioeconomic changes. Areas with highly vulnera-
events, narratives, or vague assumptions. In addition, the described ble soils and inadequately adapted soil management practices have
areas and timings are often highly ambiguous and useless for a precise been devastated by soil erosion very quickly, while other sites with
connection to geomorphic evidence. less vulnerable soils and well-adapted soil management practices have
Farmers were traditionally very knowledgeable regarding soil man- been farmed over a long period very sustainably. The awareness for
agement. The vast majority of the people were subsistence farmers who the need of soil conservation was dependent on the natural and socio-
gained knowledge by experience and oral transmission over genera- cultural situation and was different in each culture and period. The de-
tions. The widespread occurrence of terraces and other soil protecting velopment of effective soil conservation practices was particularly
techniques also shows that the practice of soil conservation was imbed- important in remote areas or on small islands where suitable soils or liv-
ded in many land use traditions. However, geomorphic evidence shows ing space were very limited. Soil conservation techniques were obviously
that most of the cultivated slopes in the Old and the New Worlds were not developed until after severe soil erosion with deteriorations to eco-
affected by soil erosion. For early prehistorical times, soil erosion is system services and subsequent socioeconomical and political realign-
mostly interpreted as a local phenomenon; while in the agricultural ments had taken place. A prominent example for such a reconfiguration
zones of Eurasia until the seventeenth century CE, much larger areas shows the soil erosion and conservation history on Easter Island. Inverse-
were seriously affected and also revealed different characteristics. In ad- ly, it is often not clear if the rise of agricultural terraces can be associated
dition, the evidence is clear that already pre-colonial agricultural socie- with a preceding phase of intensive soil erosion.
ties in Africa, America, New Zealand, or on Easter Island also caused soil Integrative studies linking geomorphic evidence with historical
erosion. sources provide essential new insights into the process changes and
The earliest available historical documents describing soil erosion timing of soil erosion and the long-term feedback to the environment.
are from Greece and China from about 2500 years ago. In the following Apart from a few case studies, the potential to analyze long-term
centuries only a few historical descriptions about soil-related environ- human–environment interactions has rarely been used from a geomor-
mental degradation and soil erosion are available. For Roman Times, phological point of view. Particularly in regions with a long cultural
the geomorphic evidence appears to be contradictory, results ranging history like in the Levant, Mesopotamia, India, or southeast Asia the po-
from massive devastation to stable landscapes over centuries in the ag- tential to assess historical records on soil erosion should be quite signif-
ricultural zones of the Roman Empire. The almost complete absence of icant. The assessment of earlier soil conservation strategies also
historical records on soil erosion in Roman sources is remarkable in con- provides lessons to evaluate the long-term processes to the water and
trast to the vast amount of material on soil management during this pe- matter fluxes in a managed landscape. The knowledge of long-term pro-
riod. However, evidence from legal actions or from soil management cesses in the past is therefore an essential part for the development of
strategies shows indirectly that Romans were aware of soil erosion modern soil conservation strategies that are sustainable in the long
and soil conservation. term under changing climatic conditions and increasing land use pres-
In China, the number of reports of floods increased for the Chinese sure. Geomorphic evidence and historical sources can often comple-
Loess Plateau during the last 1000 years. This correlates with accelerat- ment each other, but an awareness of the known and possible new
ed soil erosion and gullying as indicated by geomorphic evidence. The pitfalls should be considered when using them together. Even if it was
first observations on floods and related soil erosion events in central not possible to generate an unambiguous linkage between historical
Europe date to the late Middle Ages. Particularly the extreme precipita- sources and geomorphic evidence for each of the case studies presented
tion events and their associated floods in the mid-fourteenth century here, the article nonetheless uncovers the potential of such an integra-
are well documented in different sources and correspond well with tive approach. The compilation also reveals how the issue of soil erosion
the geomorphic evidence. A rapid increase of documentary evidence and subsequent soil conservation is applicable worldwide. Therefore,
took place in central Europe and the eastern coast of North America in this collection of different (historical) sources reveals their value to geo-
the eighteenth century and in the rest of the world in the second half morphological studies on soil erosion and soil conservation and hope-
of the nineteenth century. In the late eighteenth century and in the fully encourages further studies to utilize this promising approach.
nineteenth century, soil erosion was increasingly observed and de-
scribed by scholars and farmers, particularly in Europe and in the colo- Acknowledgments
nies of the New World. In contrast to earlier sources, the descriptions
now also contain comments about the causes and long-term effects of The origins of this paper go back to about 15 years ago when I met
soil erosion on the ecosystem. Furthermore, the reports present exten- Hans-Rudolf Bork who awoke my interest in soil erosion. Since then, I
sive practical instructions for soil conservation The first extensive have collected many unpublished citations, rare reports, and essays
essay on soil conservation known to the Western World was published that have been incorporated in this paper. However, this paper would
in Germany in 1815. In the twentieth century, in many countries of the not exist without the great help of numerous colleagues and students
28 M. Dotterweich / Geomorphology 201 (2013) 1–34

who have supported this project and also through the valuable discus- Beach, T., Luzzadder-Beach, S., Dunning, N., 2006a. A soils history of Mesoamerica and the
Caribbean. In: McNeill, J.R., Winiwarter, V. (Eds.), Soils and Societies: Perspectives
sions. I would like to acknowledge everyone who provided rare reports from Environmental History. The White Horse Press, Isle of Harris, UK, pp. 51–90.
and papers on historical soil erosion, particularly (in alphabetical Beach, T., Dunning, N., Luzzadder-Beach, S., Cook, D.E., Lohse, J., 2006b. Impacts of the ancient
order): Les Basher, Margaret A. Bickers, John Boardman, Christian Maya on soils and soil erosion in the central Maya Lowlands. Catena 65 (2), 166–178.
Beattie, J.H., 1947. In: Waimate, N.Z. (Ed.), Early Runholding in Otago (158 pp.).
Brannstrom, Xavier Bodin, Baruch Boxer, Nathaniel Bergman, Frédéric Beavis, S.G., Zhang, L., Jakeman, A.J., Gray, S.D., 1999. Erosional history of the Warrah
Darboux, Benoît Devillers, Val Dufeu, William R. Effland, Mark Elvin, Catchment in the Liverpool Plains, New South Wales. Hydrological Processes 13
Peter Gröschler, Moshe Inbar, Andrew Ivester, Frans J.P.M. Kwaad, Paul (5), 753–761.
Beinart, W., 1984. Soil Erosion, Conservationism and Ideas about Development: a South-
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