Abstract:

Soil erosion is one of the main contributing factors to decreases in soil fertility and is widely recognized as a threat to farm livelihoods and ecosystem integrity worldwide. Soil erosion is broadly categorized into; natural/geologic/normal erosion and accelerated erosion. Soil erosion begins with detachment, which is caused by breakdown of aggregates by raindrop impact, sheering or drag force of water and wind. Detached particles are transported by flowing water or wind and deposited when the velocity of water or wind decreases by the effect of slope or ground cover (Ismail et al., 2008). There are different types of soil erosion like; rainwater erosion (splash erosion, sheet erosion, hill erosion and gulley erosion), landslide erosion (earthquakes, heavy rainfall), stream bank erosion (torrential rains in hilly areas causes flooding of rivers and streams causing large scale erosion throughout the stream banks), seashore erosion (due to turbulent waves in the sea during monsoons) and wind erosion (common in low rainfall areas, mainly due to strong winds) (Onyando et al., 2005)