Soil erosion control in tree plantations on steep slopes: Runoff water andsediment trapping efficiency of riparian grass buffer in mountainoushumid tropics

Articles

1 February 2025

Riparian grass buffers reduce the velocity of water flowing over the soil surface during storms, capturing surface runoff (SR) and trapping soil particles eroded from cultivated slopes. Rarely quantified under steep slope conditions (>45 %), this phenomenon probably occurs in many mountain agroecosystems in the humid tropics. In Southeast Asia, teak plantations are often established on steep slopes where they can lead to significant soil loss (SL), particularly when the understory is removed. Therefore, this study published in the journal Ecological Engineering, aimed to quantify the effect of riparian grass buffers on SR and SL downstream of a teak tree plantation, and to estimate the trapping efficiency of riparian grass buffers for water and sediment.

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