Determining Soil Erosion Processes in Sloping Vineyards

TERRAENVISION Abstracts Vol. 1, TNV2018-ECO3-377, 2018 © Author(s) 2018. CC Attribution 3.0 License

Determining Soil Erosion Processes in Sloping Vineyards. A Comparison Between Ruwer-Mosel Valley (Trier, Germany) and Montes De Málaga (Málaga, Spain)

1Jesús Rodrigo-Comino, 2José María Senciales, 1Manuel Seeger, 3Eric C. Brevik, 1Johannes B. Ries and 2José Damián Ruiz-Sinoga

1Physical Geography, Trier University, 54286 Trier, Germany. 2Department of Geography, University of Málaga, 29071, Málaga, Spain 3Department of Natural Sciences, Dickinson State University, Dickinson, ND, USA

Sloping vineyards are ones of the most degraded agricultural activities by human impacts and rainfall events. Specifically, in the vineyards of the Almáchar in the Montes de Málaga (Axarquía, Spain) and Waldrach in the Ruwer-Mosel valley (Trier, Germany), where the popular Moscatel and Riesling grape varieties are produced, land degradation have been reported by several authors, but not real quantifications of sediment and water losses.

Both of them are characterized by silty soils mainly on Palaeozoic schists and slates with different degrees of metamorphism, steep slopes (>30%), high rock fragment cover (>30%) and occasional generation of rills and gullies due to the use of heavy machinery, extreme rainfall events and trampling effect. Anyhow, farmers take measures against soil erosion, such as building rills to canalize the surface flow (called “agri-spillways”) and small walls of stones (“albarradas”) or the use of grass cover to reduce soil and water losses. However, they are not enough to avoid completely the problem.

Therefore, the two main aims of this work are: i) to measure the spatiotemporal variations of the hydrological and geomorphologic processes in two specific sloping vineyard´s plots with conventional land use management under two different climate environments (Mediterranean and Continental climate); and, ii) to find the main key factors (natural and anthropogenic) that could influence on soil erosion processes after natural rainfall events and soil tillage practices.

Results demonstrated that sloping vineyards in the Montes de Málaga (Spain) and the Ruwer- Mosel valley (Germany) on bare soils can experience high soil erosion rates, but clear patters were not demonstrated due to the human impact. The spatiotemporal distribution of hydrological and geomorphological processes is uneven and highly conditioned by several factors such as soil properties, tillage, rainfall intensity, the age of plantation and the hillslope morphology.

Keywords: Terroir, erosion, soil vineyards TERRAENVISION Abstracts Vol. 1, TNV2018-ECO3-377, 2018 © Author(s) 2018. CC Attribution 3.0 License

Acknowledgements: This paper was given at the TERRAenVISION: Science for Society (Barcelona, Spain, 29 January to 1 February 2018), which was sponsored by the OECD Co-operative Research Programme: Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agricultural Systems whose financial support made it possible for the author to participate in the conference.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its Member countries.

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