Climate-driven reduction in soil loss due to the dynamic role of vegetation
Abstract
Simulations of 21st century climate change predict increases in seasonal precipitation that may lead to widespread soil loss and reduced soil carbon stores by increasing the likelihood of surface runoff. Vegetation may counteract this increase through its dynamic response to climate change, possibly mitigating any impact on soil erosion. Here, we document for the first time the potential for vegetation to prevent widespread soil loss by surface-runoff mechanisms (i.e., rill and inter-rill erosion) by implementing a process-based soil erosion model across catchments of Great Britain with varying land-cover, topographic, and soil characteristics. Our model results reveal that, even under a significantly wetter climate, warmer air temperatures can limit soil erosion across areas with permanent vegetation cover because of its role in enhancing primary productivity, which improves leaf interception, soil infiltration-capacity, and the erosive resistance of soil. Consequently, any increase in air temperature associated with climate change will increase the threshold change in rainfall required to accelerate soil loss, and rates of soil erosion could therefore decline by up to 50% from 2070-2099 compared to baseline values under the IPCC-defined medium-emissions scenario SRES A1B. We conclude that enhanced primary productivity due to climate change can introduce a negative-feedback mechanism that limits soil loss by surface runoff as vegetation-induced impacts on soil hydrology and erodibility offset precipitation increases, highlighting the need to expand areas of permanent vegetation cover to reduce the potential for climate-driven soil loss.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.B21I0542C
- Keywords:
-
- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 0486 Soils/pedology;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1615 Biogeochemical cycles;
- processes;
- and modeling;
- GLOBAL CHANGEDE: 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE