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• Improving the capacity to monitor Wind and Water Erosion: A Review (PDF - 5,284 KB)

About this document

Wind and water erosion are major threats to the soil assets of Australia. Many soils are eroding faster than they are forming. The removal of valuable top soil adversely impacts on our rural communities, biodiversity, carbon stores, and our ability to produce food and fibre.

The current prognosis is that agricultural land will be under increasing pressure to produce more food and fibre to support an increasing population. There will also be pressure to grow crops in dryer marginal lands that are vulnerable to wind erosion. At the same time, wind erosion is likely to become worse due to increased drought and climate variability associated with climate change. The incidence of huge dust storms, like those in 2002, are likely to increase, with major negative impacts on the soil and community at large. On-site effects include enormous losses of soil and nutrients, while off-site effects include reduced air quality and increased respiratory health risks.

With investment that promotes adoption of improved land management practices it is possible to minimise the impacts of wind and water erosion, preserve our soil asset and reduce off-site costs. Practices such as reduced tillage and sustainable grazing systems can maintain higher levels of ground cover and soil structure and reduce soil erosion.

Monitoring of wind and water erosion and ground cover are essential if Australia is to:

• Determine whether investments in natural resource management (NRM) are effective in the delivery of desired government policy and program outcomes.
• Show progress towards NRM targets.
• Prioritise investment and on-ground activities.
• Demonstrate the causal links between improved land management practices and reduced soil erosion at catchment scale.

This review and the associated workshop attended by experts from all levels of government identified what is required to establish a cost effective program to monitor soil erosion at national, state and regional scales. We outline a proposal that builds on existing skills within agencies by encouraging collaboration and sharing of infrastructure and human resources.

National workshop participants agreed that:

• Wind and water erosion monitoring activities should be integrated.
• Monitoring wind and water erosion and ground cover requires a mixture of modelling, remote sensing and observations depending on the scale required and whether onor off-site impacts are being assessed.
• Wind erosion will most effectively be monitored by assessing on-site soil loss and offsite dust concentration or dust loads.
• Water erosion will most effectively be monitored by assessing on-site hillslope soil loss and off-site river sediment loads.
• Ground cover should be monitored through remotely sensing bare ground and fractional woody and non-woody cover.

Staged funding is seen as an effective way to implement a comprehensive national wind and water erosion monitoring program. The priorities have been grouped into short term (six months of investment), medium (over the next three years) and longer term investments.

Eight short term (6 month) projects that integrate existing capabilities and provide base level information on the extent and severity of wind and water erosion are outlined Table 1.

Medium term investment over the next 3 years ($6-7 million - preliminary cost estimates) could provide the following output for monitoring wind and water erosion.

1. Annual modelled wind erosion maps (2000 to present) suitable for use at national and state scales identifying which areas are affected by wind erosion and the severity of this problem. These will help target future investments and provide trends in erosion at NRM regional level ($150K p.a.).
2. Long term (1960 to present) annual average dust concentration time series for 100 sites across Australia. Information derived from DustWatch1 observation network that continues community involvement in monitoring ($150K p.a.).
3. Establish a strategic surface dust concentration monitoring network (DustWatch 2) of six DustWatch Nodes to test models, report directly to NRM regions with DustWatch Nodes and provide improved dust concentration maps ($750K over 3 years).
4. Provide annual average national maps of water erosion using improved soil property data from Australian Soil Resource Information System for modelling (un-costed).
5. Coordinate methods and databases for an expanded network of roadside surveys and ground reference sites to calibrate and test the spatial distribution of erosion modelling and remotely sensed ground cover levels. Data will also provide input to land use and management practice data used in wind and water erosion modelling. ($600K p.a.)
6. Calibrate and test bare ground and fractional cover estimates of ground cover at national scale from satellite imagery ($2million p.a.) and establish ground cover reference sites and nationally agreed standards for the collection of calibration data ($2 million).
7. Provide freely available pre-processed multi-resolution satellite imagery for use by all NRM themes to calculate ground cover and soil moisture content.

Long term investment (3 to 6 years from now) could provide wind and water erosion monitoring products (both modelled and measured) with much improved reliability and accuracy at national, state and regional scales. Principal outputs would be monthly maps and statistics of wind and water erosion, supported by a strategic research program.

It is anticipated that the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy project - AusCover, will provide a number of the remote sensing and ground validation products needed for monitoring of wind and water erosion as standard outputs. More detailed costings for wind and water erosion will be developed in conjunction with the AusCover project.

Reviews of other national monitoring programs have shown that jurisdictional and institutional challenges can have major impacts on the long term implementation. This review suggests ways these issues might be addressed.