Category: North America

WIND EROSION DUE TO VEGETATION DESTRUCTION
The Oklahoma Panhandle forms the core area of ​​a room that is severely affected by wind erosion. The former Indian territory was opened for settlement in 1897. The geometric, often chessboard-like division of many agricultural areas in the USA – to which traffic routes, settlements and land use plots are also subordinate – is a relic from this phase of planned land acquisition.

Because the natural vegetation was largely destroyed at the beginning of the 20th century, the process of soil runoff increased after the transition to cereal cultivation (especially wheat monocultures). Heavy rain, in particular, very quickly causes large-scale, linear cuts on sloping surfaces with destroyed vegetation.

Large areas of the short grass prairie were plowed up, especially in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The wheat farmers who moved there did not know that they were seriously and sustainably disrupting the ecological balance of the region in this way. Because of the low rainfall and the regularly occurring dry periods, the region was hit several times by major droughts, which led to catastrophic soil losses due to wind erosion in the very flat, almost tree-free landscape. Because of the notorious dust storms, the name “Dust Bowl” became common for the area. In addition, there was gully erosion, in which the draining water from heavy precipitation led to a deep fragmentation of the plateau areas and the formation of so-called badlands.

COUNTERMEASURES
To combat soil degradation, various measures were introduced that were coordinated by the Soil Conservation Service, a US federal agency. The gully erosion could largely be stopped by a targeted planting of the erosion channels and their edges. In some cases, dams are being built in the existing erosion channels, which hold back the water and thus slow down its erosion power after heavy rainfall. Plowing parallel to the contour lines, known as contour plowing, also reduces soil flushing after rainfall. Sloping terraces are also created for large slopes. The installation of windbreak hedges reduces the soil erosion by the wind.

The low rainfall in the Oklahoma Panhandle is also the reason for “dry farming”, a field cultivation method in which the rainfall from two to three rainy seasons is used to bring in a harvest. Another method of erosion protection, known as strip farming, cannot be seen on the map.

In recent times, large pig fattening facilities have been established in the Oklahoma Panhandle and the immediate neighboring areas in order to achieve higher added value than would be possible only with crop production. This is intended to improve the region’s economic base and reduce dependence on crop production. For more information about the continent of North America, please check zipcodesexplorer.com.