Effect of Turfgrasses to Prevent Soil Erosion

Recent climatic changes by global warming include increased amount and intensity of rainfall. This study was conducted to find out possible roles of turfgrasses to reduce the impact of climatic changes, especially surface soil erosion. Soil erosions by intensive rain were measured after each significant precipitation from the artificially sloped plots of zoysiagrass, cool-season grass mixture of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass and other typical korean summer crops. Sodded zoysiagrass resulted in minimal annual soil erosion followed by stripsodded zoysiagrass and cool-season turfgrass mixture while dry-field rice and bean cultivations eroded the surface soils of 5 to 10 MT ㏊ -1 yr -1 and pepper cultivation resulted in 7 to 14 MT ㏊ - 1 yr -1 annual loss of surface soil. Annual loss of surface soil from bare land with hand weeding was up to 18 MT ㏊ -1 yr -1 while greatly reduced soil erosion was observed from weed grown treatment.