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Soil erosion has been identified as the greatest environmental problem facing South Africa at the dawn of the new millenium, accounting for some 450 million tons of sediment which is washed into sea from the African subcontinent annually. In southern Africa, as indeed elsewhere, subsurface srosion has generally been viewed as part of the assemblage of unique erosional events in contrast to the more obvious (and hence often interpreted as more common) forms of surface erosion, which may locally attain values in excess of 100 tons per hectare and year.
It is against this background that the research for this book was undertaken with the primary aim of understanding the extent and importance of subsurface erosion phenomena within the southern African context. By focussing on the characteristics of 148 soil pipes located pricipally in the eastern of the subcontinent, the author has been able to show that the occurrence of these erosion phenomena is considerably more widespread than at first appearant, ant that they may be divided into five distinct morphogenetic types.
Perhaps more significant, it has been possible to show that, where suitable environmental conditions exist, subsurface erosion may account for as much as a further 77% of the erosion attrubuted to surficial processes. The potential economic implications for a region in which more than 60% of the population are still directly of indirectly reliant upon agriculture ist self evident.
