Relationships between rangeland soil quality, soil resilience, and soil erosion

Title	Relationships between rangeland soil quality, soil resilience, and soil erosion
Publication Type	Conference Paper
Year of Publication	1996
Authors	Herrick JE, Weltz M.A., Schuman G.E., Reeder J.D., Simanton J.R.
Conference Name	Soil and Water Conservation Society Conference, Soil Quality and Erosion Interaction
Date Published	July 7-10, 1996
Conference Location	Keystone, CO
ARIS Log Number	077818
Keywords	rangeland, soil erosion, soil quality, soil resilience
Abstract	The relationships between rangeland soil quality, soil resilience and soil erosion depend on several interacting factors: (1) landscape and climate characteristics, (2) current disturbance regime, and (3) recent and evolutionary disturbance history. These factors tend to be more variable across rangelands than across agricultural lands. There are at least four specific relationships between soil quality and soil erosion which involve soil resistance or soil resilience. The first is the historical resistance of the soil to past disturbances, which can serve as an indicator of soil quality. Secondly, the current resistance of the soil to disturbance is related to soil erosion potential. The third relationship is the current resilience of the system following soil erosion. Finally, soil erosion is z driver in the system which determines soil quality. This final relationship illustrates the need to view the system dynamically: soil erosion both reflects and affects soil quality. These dynamic relationships depend, in turn, on the characteristics of historic and current disturbance regimes. Both ecosystems and species tend to evolve in response to dominant disturbance regimes, such as fire, drought, and grazing. The resistance and/or resilience of the system will tend to be higher for disturbance regimes which share key characteristics with historic and evolutionary patterns.