Erosion control on forest soils with vegetation, under global change

Abstract

Erosion is a risk for soil fertility but foresters usually prevent it with adapted management practices. Ecological restoration in mountain lands was a great success in the last two centuries. Thanks to the past experience and continuous research until now, a complete outfit of methods and species are available to control erosion whatever its forms. Technical guidelines put them at every one’s disposal. But new inputs due to global change, particularly climate change, changes in practices and demand for energy, increase or modify soil erosion risk and call for new approaches developed in this paper. We conclude that it is necessary to adapt the traditional knowledge in regions where the risk has always been significant, and to anticipate its increase in regions where it was usually low.