Permanent turf grass as the factor alleviating water erosion in the Carpathian Mountains

Soil erosion by water is an important economical issue, because it strongly degrades the environment. This phenomenon occurs in the Carpathian mountain areas, and it is caused largely by inappropriate land use. And in the last quarter of the century, in whole region significant structural changes took place – an increase of grassland areas. Research was made in the period of 2008–2010 in the Biała Woda catchment area (10.91 km2) – the Carpathian Mts. The study area under discussion is characterised by low share of arable lands and by high contribution of the permanent grasslands. In this paper the mass of eroded materials was determined by applying of the universal soil losses equation – USLE (WISCHEIER and SMITH, 1978), using main factors, which have the impact on shaping the catchment area e.g. geological structure, terrain relief, the soil, climate, particularly precipitation, land use and slopes. Main attention was focused on agricultural land use (grasslands), hydrographical and road network. Sometimes the field roads becomes streams (gullies, which create favourable conditions for linear erosion e.g. for transporting eroded material during, heavy rainfall. Therefore, structural–spatial changes which now are taking place sometimes intensify the erosion process.