Abstract

The Earth's land surface is dominated by sloping landscapes. Every year, soil erosion laterally distributes on the order of 75 Gt of topsoil (Berhe et al. 2007). The coupled biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are strongly influenced by soil erosion as it affects their fluxes in and out of the soil system, storage, distribution within the soil matrix, and residence time in soil. At the global scale, it is estimated that erosion can account for a net sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (Stallard 1998).