Articles | Volume 12, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-12-301-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-12-301-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Original research article
| 
30 Mar 2026
Original research article |
| 30 Mar 2026
| 30 Mar 2026
A GLUE-based assessment of WaTEM/SEDEM for simulating soil erosion, transport, and deposition in soil conservation optimised agricultural watersheds
Kay D. Seufferheld
Institute of Geography, Water and Soil Resources Research, University of Augsburg, 86159 Augsburg, Germany
Pedro V. G. Batista
Institute of Geography, Water and Soil Resources Research, University of Augsburg, 86159 Augsburg, Germany
Hadi Shokati
Department of Geosciences, Soil Science and Geomorphology, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Thomas Scholten
Department of Geosciences, Soil Science and Geomorphology, University of Tübingen, 72074 Tübingen, Germany
Peter Fiener
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Geography, Water and Soil Resources Research, University of Augsburg, 86159 Augsburg, Germany
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Hadi Shokati, Kay D. Seufferheld, Peter Fiener, and Thomas Scholten
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 743–756, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-743-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-743-2026, 2026
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Floods threaten lives and property and require rapid mapping. We compared two artificial intelligence approaches on aerial imagery: a fine‑tuned Segment Anything Model (SAM) guided by point or bounding box prompts, and a U‑Net network with ResNet‑50 and ResNet‑101 backbones. The point‑based SAM was the most accurate with precise boundaries. Faster and more reliable flood maps help rescue teams, insurers, and planners to act quickly.
Hadi Shokati, Kay D. Seufferheld, Peter Fiener, and Thomas Scholten
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 743–756, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-743-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-743-2026, 2026
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Floods threaten lives and property and require rapid mapping. We compared two artificial intelligence approaches on aerial imagery: a fine‑tuned Segment Anything Model (SAM) guided by point or bounding box prompts, and a U‑Net network with ResNet‑50 and ResNet‑101 backbones. The point‑based SAM was the most accurate with precise boundaries. Faster and more reliable flood maps help rescue teams, insurers, and planners to act quickly.
Alessandro Fabrizi, Peter Fiener, Kristof Van Oost, and Florian Wilken
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3804, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3804, 2025
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Drones can be used to identify the presence of macroplastic residues after plastic film use, allowing sustainable management practices and assessing the risk of soil plastic contamination. We highlight the potential and the limitations of current technologies, providing practical strategies to overcome them. We demonstrate the possibility of building cameras tailored to plastic detection and point the way towards necessary technological development.
Fedor Scholz, Manuel Traub, Christiane Zarfl, Thomas Scholten, and Martin V. Butz
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 6257–6283, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6257-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6257-2025, 2025
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We present a neural network model that estimates river discharge based on gridded elevation, precipitation, and solar radiation. Some instances of our model produce more accurate forecasts than the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) when simulating discharge with lead times of 50 days on the Neckar river network in Germany. It consists of multiple components that are designed to model distinct sub-processes. We show that this makes the model behave in a more physically realistic way.
Kerstin Rau, Katharina Eggensperger, Frank Schneider, Michael Blaschek, Philipp Hennig, and Thomas Scholten
SOIL, 11, 833–847, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-833-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-833-2025, 2025
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We developed an uncertainty method to show where machine learning (ML) models predicting soil units are most reliable, especially for transfer tasks. The model was able to correctly predict soil patterns, especially along rivers, in a new but similar region without retraining. It was too confident about common soil types, showing the need for balanced data. This helps improve soil maps and guides better planning for future data collection, saving time and resources while showing uncertainty.
Mathias Bellat, Mjahid Zebari, Benjamin Glissman, Tobias Rentschler, Paola Sconzo, Nafiseh Kakhani, Ruhollah Taghizadeh-Mehrjardi, Pegah Kohsravani, Bekas Brifany, Peter Pfälzner, and Thomas Scholten
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-418, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-418, 2025
Revised manuscript accepted for ESSD
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This dataset presents the first soil maps for the region produced using digital mapping techniques. It includes predictions for ten major physical and chemical soil properties at various depths, plus a map of total soil depth. For each property, we selected the most accurate models and key environmental drivers. In Southwestern Asia and many arid or semi-arid regions, detailed soil data are often missing. This dataset fills that gap, supporting agriculture, research, planning, and local policy.
Karl Auerswald, Juergen Geist, John N. Quinton, and Peter Fiener
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 2185–2200, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2185-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2185-2025, 2025
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Floods, droughts, and heatwaves are increasing globally. This is often attributed to CO2-driven climate change. However, at the global scale, CO2-driven climate change neither reduces precipitation nor adequately explains droughts. Land-use change, particularly soil sealing, compaction, and drainage, is likely to be more significant for water losses by runoff leading to flooding and water scarcity and is therefore an important part of the solution to mitigate floods, droughts, and heatwaves.
Corinna Gall, Silvana Oldenburg, Martin Nebel, Thomas Scholten, and Steffen Seitz
SOIL, 11, 199–212, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-199-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-11-199-2025, 2025
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Soil erosion is a major issue in vineyards due to often steep slopes and fallow interlines. While cover crops are typically used for erosion control, moss restoration has not yet been explored. In this study, moss restoration reduced surface runoff by 71.4 % and sediment discharge by 75.8 % compared with bare soil, similar to cover crops. Mosses could serve as ground cover where mowing is impractical, potentially reducing herbicide use in viticulture, although further research is needed.
Wanjun Zhang, Thomas Scholten, Steffen Seitz, Qianmei Zhang, Guowei Chu, Linhua Wang, Xin Xiong, and Juxiu Liu
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 3837–3854, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3837-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-3837-2024, 2024
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Rainfall input generally controls soil water and plant growth. We focus on rainfall redistribution in succession sequence forests over 22 years. Some changes in rainwater volume and chemistry in the throughfall and stemflow and drivers were investigated. Results show that shifted open rainfall over time and forest factors induced remarkable variability in throughfall and stemflow, which potentially makes forecasting future changes in water resources in the forest ecosystems more difficult.
Lena Katharina Öttl, Florian Wilken, Anna Juřicová, Pedro V. G. Batista, and Peter Fiener
SOIL, 10, 281–305, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-281-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-281-2024, 2024
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Our long-term modelling study examines the effects of multiple soil redistribution processes on carbon dynamics in a 200 km² catchment converted from natural forest to agriculture about 1000 years ago. The modelling results stress the importance of including tillage erosion processes and long-term land use and land management changes to understand current soil-redistribution-induced carbon fluxes at the landscape scale.
Raphael Rehm and Peter Fiener
SOIL, 10, 211–230, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-211-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-211-2024, 2024
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A carbon transport model was adjusted to study the importance of water and tillage erosion processes for particular microplastic (MP) transport across a mesoscale landscape. The MP mass delivered into the stream network represented a serious amount of MP input in the same range as potential MP inputs from wastewater treatment plants. In addition, most of the MP applied to arable soils remains in the topsoil (0–20 cm) for decades. The MP sink function of soil results in a long-term MP source.
Thomas Chalaux-Clergue, Rémi Bizeul, Pedro V. G. Batista, Núria Martínez-Carreras, J. Patrick Laceby, and Olivier Evrard
SOIL, 10, 109–138, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-109-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-10-109-2024, 2024
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Sediment source fingerprinting is a relevant tool to support soil conservation and watershed management in the context of accelerated soil erosion. To quantify sediment source contribution, it requires the selection of relevant tracers. We compared the three-step method and the consensus method and found very contrasted trends. The divergences between virtual mixtures and sample prediction ranges highlight that virtual mixture statistics are not directly transferable to actual samples.
Thomas O. Hoffmann, Yannik Baulig, Stefan Vollmer, Jan H. Blöthe, Karl Auerswald, and Peter Fiener
Earth Surf. Dynam., 11, 287–303, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-287-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-287-2023, 2023
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We analyzed more than 440 000 measurements from suspended sediment monitoring to show that suspended sediment concentration (SSC) in large rivers in Germany strongly declined by 50 % between 1990 and 2010. We argue that SSC is approaching the natural base level that was reached during the mid-Holocene. There is no simple explanation for this decline, but increased sediment retention in upstream headwaters is presumably the major reason for declining SSC in the large river channels studied.
Pedro V. G. Batista, Daniel L. Evans, Bernardo M. Cândido, and Peter Fiener
SOIL, 9, 71–88, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-71-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-71-2023, 2023
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Most agricultural soils erode faster than new soil is formed, which leads to soil thinning. Here, we used a model simulation to investigate how soil erosion and soil thinning can alter topsoil properties and change its susceptibility to erosion. We found that soil profiles are sensitive to erosion-induced changes in the soil system, which mostly slow down soil thinning. These findings are likely to impact how we estimate soil lifespans and simulate long-term erosion dynamics.
Nicolás Riveras-Muñoz, Steffen Seitz, Kristina Witzgall, Victoria Rodríguez, Peter Kühn, Carsten W. Mueller, Rómulo Oses, Oscar Seguel, Dirk Wagner, and Thomas Scholten
SOIL, 8, 717–731, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-8-717-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-8-717-2022, 2022
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Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) stabilize the soil surface mainly in arid regions but are also present in Mediterranean and humid climates. We studied this stabilizing effect through wet and dry sieving along a large climatic gradient in Chile and found that the stabilization of soil aggregates persists in all climates, but their role is masked and reserved for a limited number of size fractions under humid conditions by higher vegetation and organic matter contents in the topsoil.
Pedro V. G. Batista, Peter Fiener, Simon Scheper, and Christine Alewell
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 3753–3770, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3753-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-3753-2022, 2022
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Patchy agricultural landscapes have a large number of small fields, which are separated by linear features such as roads and field borders. When eroded sediments are transported out of the agricultural fields by surface runoff, these features can influence sediment connectivity. By use of measured data and a simulation model, we demonstrate how a dense road network (and its drainage system) facilitates sediment transport from fields to water courses in a patchy Swiss agricultural catchment.
Corinna Gall, Martin Nebel, Dietmar Quandt, Thomas Scholten, and Steffen Seitz
Biogeosciences, 19, 3225–3245, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3225-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3225-2022, 2022
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Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental challenges of our time, which also applies to forests when forest soil is disturbed. Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) can play a key role as erosion control. In this study, we combined soil erosion measurements with vegetation surveys in disturbed forest areas. We found that soil erosion was reduced primarily by pioneer bryophyte-dominated biocrusts and that bryophytes contributed more to soil erosion mitigation than vascular plants.
Benjamin Bukombe, Peter Fiener, Alison M. Hoyt, Laurent K. Kidinda, and Sebastian Doetterl
SOIL, 7, 639–659, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-639-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-639-2021, 2021
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Through a laboratory incubation experiment, we investigated the spatial patterns of specific maximum heterotrophic respiration in tropical African mountain forest soils developed from contrasting parent material along slope gradients. We found distinct differences in soil respiration between soil depths and geochemical regions related to soil fertility and the chemistry of the soil solution. The topographic origin of our samples was not a major determinant of the observed rates of respiration.
Sebastian Doetterl, Rodrigue K. Asifiwe, Geert Baert, Fernando Bamba, Marijn Bauters, Pascal Boeckx, Benjamin Bukombe, Georg Cadisch, Matthew Cooper, Landry N. Cizungu, Alison Hoyt, Clovis Kabaseke, Karsten Kalbitz, Laurent Kidinda, Annina Maier, Moritz Mainka, Julia Mayrock, Daniel Muhindo, Basile B. Mujinya, Serge M. Mukotanyi, Leon Nabahungu, Mario Reichenbach, Boris Rewald, Johan Six, Anna Stegmann, Laura Summerauer, Robin Unseld, Bernard Vanlauwe, Kristof Van Oost, Kris Verheyen, Cordula Vogel, Florian Wilken, and Peter Fiener
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4133–4153, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4133-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4133-2021, 2021
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The African Tropics are hotspots of modern-day land use change and are of great relevance for the global carbon cycle. Here, we present data collected as part of the DFG-funded project TropSOC along topographic, land use, and geochemical gradients in the eastern Congo Basin and the Albertine Rift. Our database contains spatial and temporal data on soil, vegetation, environmental properties, and land management collected from 136 pristine tropical forest and cropland plots between 2017 and 2020.
Mario Reichenbach, Peter Fiener, Gina Garland, Marco Griepentrog, Johan Six, and Sebastian Doetterl
SOIL, 7, 453–475, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-453-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-453-2021, 2021
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In deeply weathered tropical rainforest soils of Africa, we found that patterns of soil organic carbon stocks differ between soils developed from geochemically contrasting parent material due to differences in the abundance of organo-mineral complexes, the presence/absence of chemical stabilization mechanisms of carbon with minerals and the presence of fossil organic carbon from sedimentary rocks. Physical stabilization mechanisms by aggregation provide additional protection of soil carbon.
Joseph Tamale, Roman Hüppi, Marco Griepentrog, Laban Frank Turyagyenda, Matti Barthel, Sebastian Doetterl, Peter Fiener, and Oliver van Straaten
SOIL, 7, 433–451, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-433-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-433-2021, 2021
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Soil greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes were measured monthly from nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), N and P, and control plots of the first nutrient manipulation experiment located in an African pristine tropical forest using static chambers. The results suggest (1) contrasting soil GHG responses to nutrient addition, hence highlighting the complexity of the tropical forests, and (2) that the feedback of tropical forests to the global soil GHG budget could be altered by changes in N and P availability.
Florian Wilken, Peter Fiener, Michael Ketterer, Katrin Meusburger, Daniel Iragi Muhindo, Kristof van Oost, and Sebastian Doetterl
SOIL, 7, 399–414, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-399-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-399-2021, 2021
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This study demonstrates the usability of fallout radionuclides 239Pu and 240Pu as a tool to assess soil degradation processes in tropical Africa, which is particularly valuable in regions with limited infrastructure and challenging monitoring conditions for landscape-scale soil degradation monitoring. The study shows no indication of soil redistribution in forest sites but substantial soil redistribution in cropland (sedimentation >40 cm in 55 years) with high variability.
Sascha Scherer, Benjamin Höpfer, Katleen Deckers, Elske Fischer, Markus Fuchs, Ellen Kandeler, Jutta Lechterbeck, Eva Lehndorff, Johanna Lomax, Sven Marhan, Elena Marinova, Julia Meister, Christian Poll, Humay Rahimova, Manfred Rösch, Kristen Wroth, Julia Zastrow, Thomas Knopf, Thomas Scholten, and Peter Kühn
SOIL, 7, 269–304, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-269-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-7-269-2021, 2021
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This paper aims to reconstruct Middle Bronze Age (MBA) land use practices in the northwestern Alpine foreland (SW Germany, Hegau). We used a multi-proxy approach including biogeochemical proxies from colluvial deposits in the surroundings of a MBA settlement, on-site archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data and off-site pollen data. From our data we infer land use practices such as plowing, cereal growth, forest farming and use of fire that marked the beginning of major colluvial deposition.
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Short summary
Soil erosion threatens global food security, yet modeling soil conservation remains challenging. We evaluated WaTEM/SEDEM (Water and Tillage Erosion Model/Sediment Delivery Model) in six highly instrumented micro-scale watersheds optimised for soil conservation using a GLUE (Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation) framework. The model captured the magnitude of very low sediment yields but showed limited accuracy for annual steps. However, it performed well over eight-year timeframes and larger spatial scales, demonstrating its suitability for strategic, long-term soil conservation planning.
Soil erosion threatens global food security, yet modeling soil conservation remains challenging....
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