Assessing Erosion on U.S. Cropland: Land Management and Physical Features

The taxonomy of soil erosion presented here delineates land resources with high potential for erosion control . More than one-third of U.S. cropland is inherently nonerosive under all management regimes, about half requires conservation management to keep soil loss within tolerable limits, and the remaining 8 percent is so erosive that acceptable soil loss rates cannot be achieved under intensive cultivation. Nationally, no statistically important relationships were found between characteristics of farm owner-operators and erosiveness of cropland.