Use of caesium-137 as a tracer of erosion and sedimentation: Handbook for the application of the caesium-137 technique

Abstract

The existence of a global soil erosion problem has been increasingly recognized over the last decade. In 1984, it was estimated that the annual loss of soil from the world's croplands was of the order of 23 billion tonnes, representing a depletion of the global soil resource by 7% each decade. However, almost a decade later there still remains an urgent need for high quality and timely data. In particular, quantitative data on erosion rates is needed at both the field-scale and the reconnaissance scale in order to provide objective assessments of the magnitude of the problem In this introductory chapter, the most important impacts of soil erosion on agricultural land will be identified and used to define the data which are required to evaluate and address the soil erosion problem. This will be followed by a discussion of the capacity of existing methods of soil erosion assessment to meet the data requirements. Finallhy the potential of the caseiu-137 technique to meet the outstanding need for data will be outlined.