Erosion and terrace failure due to agricultural land abandonment in a semi-arid environment.

The article assesses the extent and causes of erosion and terrace failure on abandoned fields and options for mitigation in the Careavo basin, a semi-arid catchment in southeast Spain. According to the study that At catchment scale all abandoned fields were surveyed and characteristics of each field were described. In addition, researchers surveyed abandoned and cultivated terraces and used statistical analyses to determine the factors that induce terrace failure. At field scale the researchers constructed a detailed digital elevation model (DEM) for an abandoned terrace field o calculate sediment losses since time of abandonment.