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πŸŒ‹ Planet Earth 🏞️ Landforms

Erosion

Water erosion can be fast when rain rushes down from high ground onto low land with no plants. Strip farming and rotating crops help reduce soil erosion on slopes.
Water erosion can be fast when rain rushes down from high ground onto low land with no plants. Strip farming and rotating crops help reduce soil erosion on slopes.

πŸ“– In short

Erosion is a slow natural process in which rock and soil break up and move from place to place. Water, wind and ice work like a patient sculptor, changing the shape of the land: wearing down mountains, carving valleys and making beaches.

🀩 Did you know?

  • Erosion happens very slowly, and can take thousands or millions of years.
  • Cutting down forests increases erosion, because there are no roots left to hold the soil.
  • Big rivers carry millions of tonnes of mud to the sea every year.
  • The Nile Delta was formed from mud carried by the river.

πŸ”Ž Find out more

🌟 Water, the strongest sculptor

Rivers carry soil and pebbles that scrape their beds, so over time they carve deep valleys. America's Grand Canyon was carved by the Colorado River over millions of years.

πŸ” Wind and sand

In the desert, wind picks up grains of sand and blasts them at rocks, carving them into amazing shapes like mushrooms and arches, and moving sand to make dunes.

πŸ’‘ Waves and ice

Sea waves pound the coast again and again, wearing away rocks and making caves and sea arches. And glaciers scrape mountains and carry big boulders.

🎯 Protecting soil

Erosion can carry away the good soil from fields. So people plant trees and grass, whose roots hold the soil and protect it from rain and wind.

πŸ“Έ More pictures

Water erosion can be fast when rain rushes down from high ground onto low land with no plants. Strip farming and rotating crops help reduce soil erosion on slopes.
Water erosion can be fast when rain rushes down from high ground onto low land with no plants. Strip farming and rotating crops help reduce soil erosion on slopes.
Sheet erosion happens when wind blows away the top layer of soil, damaging farmland. Gully erosion is caused by wind and rain widening ditches and streams into gullies.
Sheet erosion happens when wind blows away the top layer of soil, damaging farmland. Gully erosion is caused by wind and rain widening ditches and streams into gullies.
Sheet erosion happens when wind blows away the top layer of soil, damaging farmland. Gully erosion is caused by wind and rain widening ditches and streams into gullies.
Sheet erosion happens when wind blows away the top layer of soil, damaging farmland. Gully erosion is caused by wind and rain widening ditches and streams into gullies.

🧩 Test yourself

1 Which of these causes erosion?

2 How can we protect soil from erosion?

3 Which picture shows β€œErosion”?

πŸŒ‹ Discover more