Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-4 (section)

=== 4.4.8 Projected Changes in Soil Erosion and Sediment Load ===

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AR5 stated that soil erosion and sediment load are projected to change ( ''low confidence'' ) due to warming and increased rainfall intensity ( [[#Jiménez%20Cisneros--2014|Jiménez Cisneros et al., 2014]] ). SRCCL concluded that future climate change will increase, with ''medium confidence'' , the potential for water-driven soil erosion in many dryland areas, causing soil organic carbon decline ( [[#Mirzabaev--2019|Mirzabaev et al., 2019]] ). SR1.5 ( [[#Hoegh-Guldberg--2018|Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018]] ) concluded that because of the complex interactions among climate change, land cover, soil management, etc., the differences between mean annual sediment load under 1.5°C and 2°C of warming are unclear.

Globally, climate change is estimated to be responsible for 30–66% increase of soil erosion by 2070, while socioeconomic developments impacting land use may lead to ± 10% change of soil erosion ( [[#Borrelli--2020|Borrelli et al., 2020]] ). At a regional scale, different effects of the climate change impact on soil losses are found owing to the ensemble experiments with climate models coupled with regional/local models of soil erosion and sediment yield. In the 21st century, the soil erosion rates are projected to increase for the European countries (Czech Republic ( [[#Svoboda--2016|Svoboda et al., 2016]] ), Belgium ( [[#Mullan--2019|Mullan et al., 2019]] ), Spain ( [[#Eekhout--2018|Eekhout et al., 2018]] ; [[#Eekhout--2019a|Eekhout and de Vente, 2019a]] ; [[#Eekhout--2019b|Eekhout and De Vente, 2019b]] ), Germany ( [[#Gericke--2019|Gericke et al., 2019]] )) by 10–80% depending on the emission scenario and time period of the projection, as well as for the USA ( [[#Garbrecht--2015|Garbrecht and Zhang, 2015]] ) and Australia ( [[#Yang--2015|Yang et al., 2015]] b; [[#Zhu--2020|Zhu et al., 2020]] ). Only a few studies demonstrated decreasing trend in soil erosion, for example, up to 9% with RCP8.5 scenario in Greece ( [[#Vantas--2020|Vantas et al., 2020]] ). Sediment yield is projected to both increase (5–16% with the SRES A1, B1, B2 scenarios in Vietnam and Laos ( [[#Giang--2017|Giang et al., 2017]] ), 11% with the RCP8.5 scenario and 8% with the SRES A2 scenario in the USA ( [[#Yasarer--2017|Yasarer et al., 2017]] and [[#Wagena--2018|Wagena et al., 2018]] , respectively), 19–37% with the RCP4.5, RCP8.5 scenarios in Burkina Faso ( [[#Op%20de%20Hipt--2018|Op de Hipt et al., 2018]] )) and decrease (30% with the SRES A1B scenario in the southwest USA ( [[#Francipane--2015|Francipane et al., 2015]] ), 8–11% with the SRES A1B scenario in Spain ( [[#Rodríguez-Blanco--2016|Rodríguez-Blanco et al., 2016]] ), 11–52% with the RCP4.5, RCP8.5 scenarios in Ethiopia ( [[#Gadissa--2018|Gadissa et al., 2018]] ), 13–62% with the RCP2.6, RCP8.5 scenarios in Canada ( [[#Loiselle--2020|Loiselle et al., 2020]] )) over the different regions of the world in the 21st century.

Post-fire sedimentation is projected to increase for nearly nine tenths of watersheds by &gt;10% and for more than one third of watersheds by &gt;100% by the 2041 to 2050 decade in the western USA with the SRES A1B scenario ( [[#Sankey--2017|Sankey et al., 2017]] ).

In summary, soil losses mainly depend on the combined effects of climate and land use changes. Herewith, recent studies demonstrate increasing impact of the projected climate change (increase of precipitation, thawing permafrost) on soil erosion ( ''medium confidence'' ).

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