Soil conservation basically means a way of keeping everything in place, literally as well as in a moreabstract sense of maintaining the functions of the soil in sustaining plant growth. Soil conservationpractices involve managing soil erosion and its counterpart process of sedimentation, reducing itsnegative impacts and exploiting the new opportunities it creates. Young (1989) defined soilconservation as a combination of controlling erosion and maintaining soil fertility. In the past thefocus has often been on trying to keep the soil at its place by plot-level activities only. Currently, theattention has switched to landscape level approaches where sedimentation is studied along witherosion, and the role of 'channels' (footpaths, roads and streams) is included as well as the 'filters' thatrestrict the overland flow of water and/or suspended sediment.
Publication year
2000
Authors
Language
English
