Erosion control is the practice of preventing or controlling wind or watererosion inagriculture,land development,coastal areas,river banks andconstruction. Effective erosion controls handlesurface runoff and are important techniques in preventingwater pollution,soil loss, wildlifehabitat loss and human property loss.
Erosion controls are used in natural areas, agricultural settings or urban environments. In urban areas erosion controls are often part ofstormwater runoff management programs required by local governments. The controls often involve the creation of a physical barrier, such as vegetation or rock, to absorb some of the energy of the wind or water that is causing the erosion. They also involve building and maintainingstorm drains. On construction sites they are often implemented in conjunction withsediment controls such assediment basins andsilt fences.
Bank erosion is a natural process: without it,rivers would not meander and change course. However, land management patterns that change the hydrograph and/or vegetation cover can act to increase or decrease channel migration rates. In many places, whether or not the banks are unstable due to human activities, people try to keep a river in a single place. This can be done for environmental reclamation or to prevent a river from changing course into land that is being used by people. One way that this is done is by placingriprap orgabions along the bank.
Examples of erosion control methods include the following:
Since the 1920s and 1930s[3] scientists have been creatingmathematical models for understanding the mechanisms of soil erosion and resulting sedimentsurface runoff, including an early paper byAlbert Einstein applyingBaer's law.[4] These models have addressed both gully and sheet erosion. Earliest models were a simple set of linked equations which could be employed by manual calculation. By the 1970s the models had expanded to complexcomputer models addressingnonpoint source pollution with thousands of lines of computer code.[5] The more complex models were able to address nuances in micrometeorology, soil particle size distributions and micro-terrain variation.
