An escalating environmental effect of erosion threat in Abia State - Nigeria

One of the most striking methodological developments in geography during the last two decades is concern with soil erosion. This study of geographic space is part of a more general trend in modern geography, which has been termed the physical revolution, and which followed the quantitative revolution of solving and analyzing soil erosion problems.

Very few models have the potential to predict ephemeral gully erosion sites, for example, CREAM, WEPP, and EGEM. The Ephemeral Gully Erosion Model (EGEM), A method for computing ephemeral gully erosion was developed under the direction of Dr. John Laflen, USDA, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to predict soil loss by ephemeral gully erosion.

Erosion of farm fields due to concentrated flow is severe in many parts of Isuikwuota. Soil erosion prediction methods currently in use include the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and Revised USLE. These methods account for sheet and rill erosion and not for erosion from concentrated flow. The term “ephemeral gully” has been applied to a concentrated flow channel larger than a rill routinely obliterated due to tillage operations. An estimation technique for ephemeral gully erosion is needed both to quantify the problem and analyze alternatives for the solution of the problem. With renewed interest in modeling ephemeral gully erosion in agricultural areas, the EGEM model could be the basis for an improved model with stronger physically based algorithms, wider geographical applicability, and watershed application using GIS.