Soil erosion in Austria

The ErosAT project aims at a national calculation of soil erosion with regional data and local significance. In particular, the effectiveness of different erosion control measures in the Austrian program for environmentally friendly agriculture (ÖPUL) is to be evaluated.

Summary:

Project processing:
P. Strauss, E. Schmaltz, C. Krammer, O. Mitrovitz

Project promotion:
Federal Ministry of Austria for Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management

Brief Description:

Since 1995, measures to reduce soil erosion are part of the Austrian ÖPUL programme. To evaluate the effectiveness of the subsidized measures it is necessary know about potential as well as actual soil loss rates. A common approach to evaluate soil erosion at large scale is to apply erosion modelling. Here, the quality of results depends on the combination of modelling approach and quality of input data. Present day data availability enables to implement new modelling approaches. Main changes will focus on a new description of rainfall erosivity and regionally differentiating data for land use and land management. Thus, ErosAT will provide a sound basis for the calculation of soil erosion by water under Austrian conditions:

  • New evaluation/adaption of amount and regional distribution of soil erosion by water with regional data sets.
  • Calculation of indicator values for soil erosion by water in t/ha/Year (I13, C42) which may be implemented by the European Commission.
  • Development of data sets for the evaluation of ÖPUL erosion control measures.