Effect of Vegetation Removal on Soil Erosion and Bank Stability in Agricultural Drainage Ditches
Open accessAbstract
Maintenance of agricultural drainage ditches can be difficult to optimize if farmers have no guidelines on where to target their maintenance efforts. A main concern is whether ditch banks will experience soil erosion or mass movement (failure). In order to help identify sites that are more likely to experience soil erosion and/or mass movement, soil susceptibility to detachment was assessed in this study using a cohesive strength meter (CSM) and measurements of shear strength in unsaturated direct shear tests. The results showed that soil roots play an important role in stabilizing ditch banks against mass movement and in reducing the rate of soil detachment. A positive stabilizing effect was detected by CSM and confirmed by shear strength measurements. The conclusion is that native vegetation should be maintained on ditch banks, instead of being removed during maintenance work as is currently the case.
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Management can include channelization, dredging, vegetation removal, flow and water-level regulation, or riparian zone management, all of which have the potential to affect in-situ hydrological processes as well as the eco-hydrology of the surrounding landscape.
“Management can include channelization, dredging, vegetation removal, flow and water-level regulation 111,118,120 , or riparian zone management (e.g., vegetation removal, establishing trees, widening floodplains, fencing out livestock 104,121 ), all of which have the potential to affect insitu hydrological processes as well as the eco-hydrology of the surrounding landscape.”
From Lines in the landscape (2025) · cites this paper as [120]
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Clifford, C., Bieroza, M., Clarke, S. J., Pickard, A., Stratigos, M. J., Hill, M. J., Raheem, N., Tatariw, C., Wood, P. J., Arismendi, I., et al. (2025) · Communications Earth & Environment · doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02699-y · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Self-citationAviles Ribera, D. B., Wesstrom, I., & Joel, A. (2023) · Journal of the ASABE · doi:10.13031/ja.15393 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Aviles, D., Wesström, I., & Joel, A.
- Affiliations
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, PO Box 7014, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SE)
- Venue
- Land
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-11-11
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 441
- ISSN
- 2073-445X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3098219252
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 33
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Land (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Epsilon Open Archive (Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet biblioteket (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Swedish International Development Agency (75000554 and 75000554-09)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Tree Root and Stability Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes
- Keywords
- agricultural drainage ditches, soil erosion, mass movements, vegetation removal, root reinforcement, soil detachment, cohesive strength, unsaturated shear strength, ditch maintenance, native vegetation
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