17.1 INTRODUCTION

When land is disturbed for any reason, soil erosion becomes a problem. According to Goldman et al. (1986) such disturbance would increase the soil erosion rate from 2 to 40,000 times. This magnitude of increase would translate into millions of tons of soil loss that would end up in our rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.

Most problems associated with erosion and sedimentation are avoidable. Numerous books have been written just to address the subject of erosion and sediment control, offering simple and low-cost control measures. Also, many attempts have been made to develop models that are accessible to both planners and designers to predict potential scenarios allowing better erosion and sediment control practices to be implemented. This chapter in this book presents various materials that could be used by any technical person to understand the problem associated with soil erosion and sedimentation and their causes. A section has been included to identify some of the best management practices to prevent and minimize the occurrence of erosion and sedimentation. Most important, as an aid to the engineer or designer, a section on predicting and estimating soil loss was covered. A catalog of empirical relations and models addressing soil erosion prediction is presented for various users from the casual to the analytical. The presentation was intended to highlight the existing prediction equations and models for soil erosion evaluation.

Soil erosion