Soil conservation is the practice of land management to reduce erosion and therefore maintain sustainable soil and water resources.
Erosion is a natural process influenced by geology, slope, climate and vegetation.
However, land use can also affect erosion and human modification of the landscape can significantly accelerate the erosion process. The main types of erosion in the Bay of Plenty are sheet and rill surface erosion and gully erosion. The volcanic ash soils of the Bay of Plenty region are particularly susceptible to erosion if they have insufficient vegetation cover. Erosion problems in the Bay of Plenty are aggravated by changes in land use from forest to pasture, increased stock numbers and surface compaction. The Ministry for the Environment has identified 680,000ha of land potentially at risk from some degree of erosion in the Bay of Plenty.