Simon Scheper

• PhD Environmental Science
• CEO at Dr. Simon Scheper - Research | Consulting | Teaching

While it needs yet to be assessed whether or not wind erosion in Western Saxony is a major point of concern regarding land degradation and fertility, it has already been recognized that considerable off-site effects of wind erosion in the adjacent regions of Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg are connected to the spread of herbicides, pesticides and dus...

One major controlling factor of water erosion is rainfall erosivity, which is quantified as the product of total storm energy and a maximum 30 min intensity (I30). Rainfall erosivity is often expressed as R-factor in soil erosion risk models like the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). As rainfall erosivity is close...

The decrease in vegetation cover is one of the main triggering factors for soil erosion of grasslands. Within the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), a model commonly used to describe soil erosion, the vegetation cover for grassland is expressed in the cover and management factor (C-factor). The site-specific C-factor is a combination of...

Soil erodibility, commonly expressed as the K‐factor in USLE‐type erosion models, is a crucial parameter for determining soil loss rates. However, a national soil erodibility map based on measured soil properties did so far not exist for Switzerland. As an EU non‐member state, Switzerland was not included in previous soil mapping programs such as t...

In den letzten Jahren kam es infolge von Unwettern in Verbindung mit Starkregen mehrmals zu Überflutungen von Autobahnen in Sachsen-Anhalt. Mit solchen Ereignissen verbunden ist i. d. R. auch der Abtrag von Bodenmaterial von den umliegenden Ackerflächen. Beides führt, neben dem Verlust an Bodenfruchtbarkeit, zur Gefährdung von Verkehrsteilnehmern u...

Soil health degradation is a major threat to European food security, biodiversity, and climate stability. While scientists have debated how to define soil health during recent decades, a quantifiable framework for monitoring, management, and policy remains lacking. We introduce SHERPA (Soil Health Evaluation, Rating Protocol, and Assessment) as a f...

Soil loss by water erosion is one of the main threats to soil health and food production in intensively used agricultural areas. To assess its significance to overall sediment production, we applied the Water and Tillage Erosion Model/Sediment Delivery model (WaTEM/SEDEM) to the Luoyugou catchment, a subcatchment of the Yellow River Basin within th...

The interaction between geomorphological and ecological processes plays a significant role in determining landscape patterns in glacier forelands. However, the spatial organization of this biogeomorphic mosaic remains unclear due to limited catchment-scale data. To address this gap, we used a multi-proxy analysis to map potential geomorphic activit...

Das Erosionsmodell WaTEM/SEDEM (Water and Tillage Erosion Model/Sediment Delivery model) ist nicht nur in der Lage, Erosionsraten durch Rillen- und Flächenerosion zu bestimmen, sondern gleichzeitig auch die Deposition von einst erodiertem Material zu berücksichtigen. Daher ist es ein geeigneter Ansatz, um weiterführende Informationen zur räumlichen...

Soil loss by water erosion is one of the main threats to soil health and food production in intensively used agricultural areas. To assess its significance to the overall sediment production we applied the Water and Tillage Erosion Model/Sediment Delivery model (WaTEM/SEDEM) to the Luoyugou catchment, a sub-catchment of the Yellow River basin withi...

Soil erosion and sediment export from hillslopes are significant problems associated with agriculture, especially in parts of the world where society is already living in extreme environments. In particular, mountainous environments remain severely understudied, with only a few runoff and sediment transport measurements available. It is necessary,...

Eine der Hauptbedrohungen der Böden Europas ist die Erosion durch Wasser und Wind. Insbesondere zur räumlichen Verteilung und den Ausmaßen der Winderosion liegen derzeit jedoch-auch für Österreich-kaum Daten vor. Ziel des Projektes war es, für ein durch Winderosion gefährdetes Gebiet im Nordosten Österreichs (Pannonisches Tief-und Hügelland), (i) d...

During Arctic springtime, halogen radicals oxidize atmospheric elemental mercury (Hg ⁰ ), which deposits to the cryosphere. This is followed by a summertime atmospheric Hg ⁰ peak that is thought to result mostly from terrestrial Hg inputs to the Arctic Ocean, followed by photoreduction and emission to air. The large terrestrial Hg contribution to t...

Wind erosion is a process in which soil particles are detached from soils and transported downwind. One effective measure to reduce wind erosion are vegetated windbreaks such as hedgerows as they reduce wind speeds and likewise the forces which detach and transport soil particles. However, the planting of new windbreaks is driven by policy decision...

The accelerated sediment supply from agricultural soils to riverine and lacustrine environments leads to negative off-site consequences. In particular, the sediment connectivity from agricultural land to surface waters is strongly affected by landscape patchiness and the linear structures that separate field parcels (e.g. roads, tracks, hedges, and...

One of the most effective measures to prevent or at least reduce wind erosion is the planting of natural windbreaks like hedges, tree rows, or shrubs. However, when deciding where to plant a windbreak, many variables and criteria must be considered to help select the most appropriate locations. We have developed an automated routine that suggests t...

The interaction between abiotic and biotic development in glacier forelands depends on species traits and the frequency and magnitude of geomorphic events as shown on plot-scale studies. However, upscaling of biogeomorphic interactions is still scarce and it remains unclear how these interactions form and shape dynamic patches. In this study, we co...

Background Pelosols are the Soil of the Year 2022 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. They represent soils with a high clay content (≥45%) in the diagnostic P horizon. Pelosols are nutrient-rich, have a strong capacity for swelling and shrinking, have a challenging water balance with a high portion of nonplant available water and are affected by h...

The influence of wind on agricultural land can lead to wind erosion, increased unproductive evapotranspiration and damage to plant tissue. The establishment and maintenance of vegetated windbreaks are agro-ecological measures to reduce this potential for damage. Little quantitative information has yet been collected about their effectiveness in the...

Windbreaks fulfil multiple functions in rural landscapes. A systematic review of the ecosystem services of tree windbreaks revealed significant knowledge gaps in the role of such structural elements in the regional and local water cycles. Especially in the summer-warm region in the northeastern part of Austria, agricultural production is stressed b...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.mex.2019.01.004.].

Since 1770 wind erosion has been documented as a threat in the Austrian part of the Pannonian Basin, a flat region with light soils, high wind speeds, and intense agriculture. Over the past 70 years, windbreaks were established in this region to reduce topsoil mobilization by the wind. However, most of the measures taken were based on observations...

Windbreaks are key structural elements in the rural environment and affect the functionality of landscapes in multiple ways. A broad interdisciplinary view on these functions lacks in scientific literature and common knowledge. This led to underinformed management decisions, a decrease in the number of windbreaks in wide areas, and a subsequent los...

Various large-scale risk maps show that the eastern part of Austria, in particular the Pannonian Basin, is one of the regions in Europe most vulnerable to wind erosion. However, comprehensive assessments of the severity and the extent of wind erosion risk are still lacking for this region. This study aimed to prove the results of large-scale maps b...

The accelerated sediment supply from agricultural soils to riverine and lacustrine environments leads to negative off-site consequences. In particular, the sediment connectivity from agricultural land to surface waters is strongly affected by landscape patchiness and the linear structures that separate field parcels (e.g. roads, tracks, hedges, and...

Sediment connectivity is highly influenced by landscape patchiness. In particular, linear features such as roads, ditches, and terraces, modify landscape patterns and affect sediment transport from hillslopes to surface waters. Connectivity patterns are commonly assessed by spatially-distributed models, which rely on semi-qualitative indices or num...

Wind erosion of arable soil is considered a risk factor for Austrian fields, but direct measurements of soil loss are not available until now. Despite this uncertainty, vegetated windbreaks have been established to minimize adverse wind impacts on arable land. The study addresses these questions: i) How relevant is wind erosion as a factor of soil...

The degrading impact of wind on agricultural soils has been observed throughout centuries in the Pannonian region of central Europe. Nevertheless, soil loss was not yet quantified and the extent or relevance of the problem are unknown for this agriculturally important region. Especially dry soil surface is highly prone to erosion and as drought per...

Detailed soil information is a valuable resource for various approaches like agricultural management, soil protection, or spatial planning. Preserving, using and enriching soils are complex processes that fundamentally need a sound regional database. Many countries lack this sort of extensive data or the existing data must be urgently updated when...

So far the most state-of-the-art soil map (soil map 1:50'000) of the German federal state Baden-Wuerttemberg is based on conventional data sources as soil surveys, forest mapping, geological and topographical maps, and digital elevation models. However, the integration of remote sensing products as a complementary data source has attained little at...

The Department 93 of the State Authority for Geology, Raw Materials and Mining (LGRB) Baden-Württemberg has the task of carrying out the systematic soil survey in Baden-Württemberg, Germany's third-largest state in southwest Germany. The results are used, for example, in the implementation of soil protection concerns in planning (regional planning,...

This study presents the first mapping of soil erosion risk modelling based on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) at a sub-annual (monthly) temporal resolution and national scale (100 m spatial resolution). The monthly maps show highest water erosion rates on Swiss grasslands in August (1.25 t ha-1 month-1). In summer, the mean monthly...

The decrease in vegetation cover is one of the main triggering factors for soil erosion of grasslands. Within the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), a model commonly used to describe soil erosion, the vegetation cover for grassland is expressed in the cover and management factor (C-factor). We combine different existing data sources and...

Basierend auf den Satellitendaten der Copernicus Mission werden für Baden-Württemberg flächendeckende, hochaufgelöste, oberflächennahe Bodenparameter (z.B. organischer Kohlenstoffgehalt, Tongehalte, Bodenfeuchte, Steingehalte, Bodenrauhigkeiten) sowie die Änderungen der Geländehöhe der Moorflächen ermittelt.

The slope length and slope steepness factor (LS-factor) is one of five factors of the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE) describing the influence of topography on soil erosion risk. The LS-factor was originally developed for slopes less than 50% inclination and has not been tested for steeper slopes. To overcome thi...

Der jährliche monetäre Verlust für die Landwirtschaft in Europa durch Bodenerosion beträgt ca. 1,25 Milliarden Euro (Panagos et al., 2018). In der Schweiz werden die Schäden für das Ackerland auf etwa 45,5 Millionen Euro geschätzt (Ledermann 2012), die bei einem Einbezug des Schweizer Grünlands erheblich höher anzusetzen wären. Nach der neuen natio...

The monetary loss for agriculture in Europe due to soil erosion is about 1.25 billion Euros per year (Panagos et al., 2018). The costs of soil erosion for the Swiss arable land are approximately estimated to be 45.5 million Euro (Ledermann 2012) and will be even higher if Swiss grasslands are included. According to the new national grassland map of...

So far, neither a grassland map, temporal analysis of the conversion of permanent grassland (PG) to other land uses nor the differentiation of permanent and temporal grassland exists for Switzerland. For the first time in Switzerland, we present a Swiss national grassland map for the year 2015 capturing the extent of both, permanent and temporal gr...

One major controlling factor of water erosion is rainfall erosivity, which is quantified as the product of total storm energy of an erosive rainfall event and a maximum 30 min intensity. Rainfall erosivity is expressed as the R-factor in erosion models like the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). R-factors were mode...

Switzerland is a country dominated by grassland. Grasslands cover about 28% of the territory and 72% of the total agricultural area (Jeangros and Thomet, 2004). However, beyond these estimates, a national grassland mapping does not exist yet for Switzerland. We developed a national grassland map to assess the national extent of grasslands and to ap...

In 2015, Switzerland joined the European topsoil sampling Land Use/Cover Area frame Survey (LUCAS) and contributed 160 forest and grassland soil samples. For the first time, topsoils from high alpine locations above 1500 m a.s.l. (n=39) were additionally sampled. Thus, the Swiss LUCAS dataset is unique in considering alpine soils and enables inter...

According to the revised soil erosion equation (RUSLE), soil erosion is controlled by the factors rainfall erosivity R, soil erodibility K, cover management C, slope length and steepness LS, and support practices P. The C-factor represents the effect of cropping and management practices on erosion rates by water (Renard et al. 1997) and is the fact...

Das Winderosionsmodell SoLoWind berücksichtigt neu neben den gängigen Paramatern Bodentextur, organischer Gehalt, Windgeschwindigkeit und Windhindernissen auch den Richtungswechsel des Windes, die Feldlänge und Bodenbedeckung. Das Modell wurde in Westsachsen getestet.

Die Schweizer Erosionsrisikokarte wird für das alpine Grasland erweitert. Dabei wird ein dynamischer Ansatz verfolgt, der die raum-zeitliche Dynamik des Bodenverlusts berücksichtigt.

The focus of wind erosion studies in Germany is located in the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, where wind erosion is a major soil threat and environmental concern. One of the most susceptible regions not only within Germany, but also within Europe (1, 2) is Western Saxony even though no high resolution erosion risk map exists for that re...

Die Erosionsrisikokarte ERK-Berg für das Schweizer Berggebiet | Carte du risque d’erosion ERK-Berg pour les régions de montagne suisses

SoLoWind - Soil Loss by Wind Erosion Model

Rainfall has direct impacts on soil mobilization by rapid wetting or splash and runoff effects and is one of the main driving forces of water erosion. A combination of rainfall amount and intensity is expressed as rainfall erosivity (R-factor) which is one of the five soil erosion risk factors (rainfall erosivity, soil erodibility, slope steepness...

Soil erosion on grassland is generally neglected due to its protective character of dense grass vegetation on soil loss. However, recent studies by Meusburger et al. (2012), Konz et al. (2012) and Alewell et al. (2014) showed that large amounts of topsoil are also mobilized on grassland, especially in the Alpine area. Furthermore, it is expected th...

One major controlling factor of water erosion is rainfall erosivity, which is quantified by the kinetic energy of a rainfall event and its maximum 30-min intensity. Rainfall erosivity is often expressed as R-factor in soil erosion risk models like the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). As rainfall erosivity is clos...

Water erosion is crucially controlled by rainfall erosivity, which is quantified out of the kinetic energy of raindrop impact and associated surface runoff. Rainfall erosivity is often expressed as the R-factor in soil erosion risk models like the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its revised version (RUSLE). Just like precipitation, the rain...

Im April 2011 führte das Zusammenspiel von bestimmten meteorologischen Verhältnissen und günstige Bodeneigenschaften zu einer Massenkarambolage auf der Autobahn A19 bei Rostock. Durch Winderosion konnten große Mengen an Bodenmaterial von landwirtschaftlichen Nutzflächen abgetragen und über das Medium Wind transportiert werden. Die Folge waren Sicht...