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Soil erosion risk and sediment transport within Paros Island, Greece.

Citation:

Centeri C, Kristof D, Evelpidou N, Vassilopoulos A, Giotitsas I, Varvarigos G. Soil erosion risk and sediment transport within Paros Island, Greece. In: Fournier AJ Soil Erosion: Causes, Processes and Effects. New York: NOVA Science Publisher; 2011. pp. 219-234.

Abstract:

Paros Island is part of the complex of Cyclades Islands, situated in the central Aegean Sea, Greece. The climate of Paros Island is representative of the Mediterranean type, with abrupt rainfalls and lower temperatures during winters and long term sunshine accompanied by dry periods during the summer, conditions able to cause severe problems on the land. The island's low vegetation leaves the ground exposed to erosion. Also, the recent change from the local's people agricultural activities to touristic ones-especially the abandonment of the agricultural terraces during the last 50 years-has influenced the soil cover of the island in an unfavorable way, leading to total soil loss and exposure of the bedrock in many areas. Aggravating this fact, the island's steep slopes render soil regeneration almost impossible. The transferred soil is either moving towards the small alluvial plains or, in most cases, is being deposited directly to the sea. In the following paper an effort is being made to depict the currently existing situation on the island by delineating the areas still appearing to be at a high risk for erosion and to estimate the average amount of soil loss. For the later, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was tested on the data of the island. The application of the USLE was implemented via MapInfo and ArcGIS Tools Software. The main result of the present study is that it outlines the areas where severe erosion might occur and also gives a good example for land users what is the best scenario o protect their land against erosion and which plant they should use or avoid to protect their soil from erosion.