A study using satellite imagery and LiDAR surveys of the US Corn Belt agricultural region finds that although previous estimates suggested that no part of the Corn Belt had lost all of the organic-rich A-horizon soil, around 35% of the region has likely lost the A-horizon through agricultural erosion since European settlement and initiation of agriculture, resulting in a 6% decline in crop yields relative to yields from undegraded soils and annual economic losses of around $2.8 billion, according to the authors.
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Article #19-22375: "The extent of soil loss across the US Corn Belt," by Evan Thaler, Isaac Larsen, and Qian Yu.
MEDIA CONTACT: Evan Thaler, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA; email: < thaler.evan@gmail.com >
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences