Revision Demand and Direction of National Policy for Soil Erosion Survey (II): Determination of Tolerable Soil Loss Limit

Youn Shik Park

doi:10.22698/jales.20260018

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2026 Vol.38, Issue 3 Preview Page Next Page

Research Article

Revision Demand and Direction of National Policy for Soil Erosion Survey (II): Determination of Tolerable Soil Loss Limit

30 September 2026. pp. 269-277

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Abstract

Soil erosion is a critical environmental issue, particularly in South Korea, where steep topography and concentrated summer rainfall accelerate soil loss. The Public Notice on Current Status of Topsoil Erosion provides a framework for soil erosion surveys using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), which consists of preliminary and field survey stages. Although the preliminary survey includes a clear site-selection threshold (50 Mg/ha/yr), the field survey currently lacks an evaluation standard for measured soil loss. This study proposes a method to determine the Tolerable Soil Loss Limit (TSLL) as such a criterion. The method uses five soil attributes (bulk density (BD), saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks), USLE soil erodibility factor (K_USLE), pH, and soil organic carbon (SOC)) to compute an aggregate quality score (Q), which, together with topsoil depth, determines the TSLL. Ks was estimated using the pedotransfer function, and K_USLE was calculated. The proposed method was applied to 252 South Korean soil series, for which measured BD was available in the Heuktoram soil database. Results showed that 168 series (66.7%) were assigned a TSLL of 2.5 Mg/ha/yr, reflecting predominantly shallow topsoil and moderate soil quality. The proposed method provides a soil-specific, attribute-based criterion for assessing whether field-measured soil loss exceeds tolerable limits.

Keywords

National policy

Soil erosion

Tolerable soil loss limit

Universal soil loss equation (USLE)

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Information

Publisher :Agriculture and Life Sciences Research Institute, Kangwon National University
Publisher(Ko) :None
Journal Title :Journal of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences
Volume : 38
No :3
Pages :269-277
Received Date : 2026-06-08
Revised Date : 2026-07-10
Accepted Date : 2026-07-23
DOI :https://doi.org/10.22698/jales.20260018

Journal of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences ISSN:2233-8322(Print) 2508-870X(Online)

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