EVALUATION OF TILLAGE EROSION UNDER NORTH-WEST COASTAL REGION OF EGYPT

Abstract

Tillage erosion has been identified as an important global soil degradation process that has to be accounted for when assessing the erosional impacts on soil productivity, environmental quality or landscape evolution. No study has been carried out on tillage erosion associated with chisel tillage systems in the North West coastal zone in Egypt, and there is a need to examine tillage erosivity of chisel tillage and the effect of slope gradient on tillage translocation. With both tillage and water erosion occurring in a cultivated topographically complex landscape, it is valuable to investigate the relative contributions of and the possible linkage and interactions between these two erosion processes. Tillage translocation causes the mixture of subsoil into the till-layer, which may considerably affect soil properties and therefore the related biophysical processes. In this study, using plot tracers, we examined tillage translocation caused by four chisel tillage systems: Chisel tillage of a consolidated soil under stubble vegetation (primary pass) up and downslope tillage, Chisel tillage of a consolidated soil under stubble vegetation (primary pass) contour tillage, Chisel tillage of a freshly tilled, loosened soil (secondary pass) up and downslope tillage and Chisel tillage of a freshly tilled, loosened soil (secondary pass) contour tillage in the North West coastal zone, Egypt.