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The European Cross-Compliance mechanism set up within the Common Agricultural Policy provides support payments to farmers under the condition that specific Standards for Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs) are respected. GAEC standard 5 is specific to limit soil loss by erosion in arable crops and requires to comply with the ‘Realization of temporary ditches’ in sloping lands affected by soil erosion. The evaluation of soil erosion with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), performed in 60 hilly areas of Italy located in 11 administrative regions, indicated the effectiveness of temporary ditches in reducing soil erosion. As average the presence of ditches significantly decreased erosion by 22.6 Mg ha–1 yr–1 (67%) compared to erosion without temporary ditches. The highest soil losses in the presence of temporary ditches were found in Marche (24.1 Mg ha–1), Umbria (17.4 Mg ha–1), and Emilia-Romagna (15.3 Mg ha–1) regions, which were much above the USDA maximum acceptable erosion rate. Instead, the lowest soil losses were observed in Apulia (1.6 Mg ha–1), Molise (4.1 Mg ha–1), and Tuscany (5.9 Mg ha–1), where they assumed values below the USDA acceptable limit. Results pointed out that the topographic factor has the highest weight among the RUSLE parameters, thus its appraisal requires the best accuracy for a correct estimation of soil losses. Introduction Soil erosion is a major threat in agricultural lands, with detrimental effects on ecosystem services and soil functions, e.g. food production, carbon sequestration, nutrient and water cycling, flood regulation, and soil formation (Lal, 2014). Sustainable land use and conservation practices can be effective to reduce soil erosion, improve soil and water quality, increase soil organic carbon, as well as adaptation and mitigation to climate change (FAO, 2017). The effect of soil erosion is particularly relevant in areas with seasonally contrasted climate conditions, with summer drought and heavy rainfall in winter when the soil is not fully covered by vegetation and is more prone to erosion (Muñoz-Rojas et al., 2015). Recently, the risk of soil erosion has been exacerbated by the extreme rainfall events alternating with periods of drought, affecting land degradation processes, in particular in areas where soils are structurally more vulnerable such as the Mediterranean basin (Prosdomici et al., 2016). In these areas concerns about soil erosion and its consequences emerged mainly with the cultivation of steep slopes in hilly areas where intense erosion processes are widespread, particularly sheet erosion, rilling, gullying, shallow land sliding, and the development of active badlands both in subhumid and semi-arid zones (Torri et al., 2002; Diodato and Bellocchi, 2010; Borrelli et al., 2013, 2014). Researches have addresses soil erosion at country level in Italy using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Wischmeier and Smith, 1978) by elaborating a map of the soil erosion risk (Van der Knijff et al., 1999, 2002), while Grimm et al. (2003) adopted a revised USLE version. Geographic Information Systems (GIS), satellite imagery, spatial interpolation methods and modelling approaches represent new tools to assess soil erosion and land management practices (Van Rompaey et al., 2007; Salvati and Zitti, 2009; Borrelli et al., 2014; Panagos et al., 2014a, 2014b). During the past decade, the problem of soil erosion has become part of the environmental agenda in the European Union (EU) due to its impacts on food production, drinking water quality, ecosystem services, flooding, eutrophication, biodiversity and carbon stock depletion (Gobin et al., 2004). The EU Soils Thematic Strategy, adopted by the European Commission in September 2006, indicated accelerated soil erosion as major threat to European soil. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union recognizes the importance of protecting soil and addressed the issue of reducing soil erosion in agricultural lands (Panagos et al., 2015). The European Cross-Compliance mechanism set up within the CAP provides support payments to farmers under the condition that specific Standards for Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAECs) are respected, as established by Council Regulation (EC) 1782/2003 and then by Regulation (EC) 1306/2013. GAEC standard 5 (minimum land Correspondence: Ulderico Neri, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, via della Navicella 2-4, 00184 Rome, Italy. E-mail: ulderico.neri@crea.gov.it

Temporary ditches are effective in reducing soil erosion in hilly areas. An evaluation with the RUSLE model