Solution scenario for erosion bottlenecks - strategic grassland

The map with solution scenarios for erosion bottlenecks contains the data from the municipal erosion control plans in Flanders, approved by the Department of Land and Soil Protection, Subsurface, Natural Resources of the Flemish Government. The data from these plans are proposals of erosion control measures deemed useful. The inclusion of measures in these plans does not mean that the measures will actually be implemented. As not all erosion-prone municipalities have an approved municipal erosion control plan yet, the map cannot be considered complete. It is estimated that around 120 municipalities in the Flemish Region are affected by water and processing erosion in at least part of their territory due to the combination of the sloping topography, the high clay content in the soil and the agricultural practice with intensive arable farming. In Flanders, these municipalities are concentrated in a band of an average of 30 kilometres in the south of the Region. About 100 municipalities have an approved erosion control plan. The municipal erosion control plan consists of, on the one hand, the study of historical and environmental factors (the analysis of the preconditions), and, on the other hand, the identification of erosion bottlenecks together with a concept of solution consisting of a combination of source-oriented and symptom-oriented erosion control measures for each of the bottlenecks (the bottleneck analysis). A bottleneck is defined as the area that drains to a known erosion problem point. The plans submitted for approval were drawn up by ten different engineering offices. The variety of naming and symbology of erosion control measures was reduced for this map to ten classes of measures, divided into point, line and plane measures. The ‘strategic grassland’ data layer contains the demarcation of parcels that were grassland at the time of the preparation of the municipal erosion control plan and that were strategically favourable for the purpose of combating erosion.