SOIL EROSION IN IRAN: STATE OF THE ART, TENDENCY AND SOLUTIONS

Soil erosion mirrors the complex interactions among living and non-living elements in a watershed system. Any type of imbalance in watershed components leads to unexpected and unwished outcomes causing loss of infrastructures and investments. Different figures from 0.8 to even 7 billion tones have been given on soil erosion rate in Iran, progressively increased during last decades. Untimely erosive rain, high potential sensitivity of resources, improper infrastructures development, land use changes, and unlawful/over exploitation of resources are the main reasons behind ever-increasing soil erosion. However, many attempts made by authorized organizations and agencies could simply brake down the high rate of the erosion. In the present article, it was aimed to report some managerial approaches for minimizing the soil erosion-related problems towards developing integrated watershed management approach in Iran.