If soil is a dirty word, erosion is downright obscene. It is also misused and misunderstood. Erosion is a natural process. It is the surficial counterpart of the weathering of parent material. If erosion did not occur, soils would get thicker and thicker.
Erosion is the natural wearing away.
Literally, erosion is the movement or transportation of material which was soil but becomes sediment as soon as it begins to move. There is nothing wrong with or bad about erosion, contrary to popular opinion. It is not caused by human misuse. When most people think of erosion as something bad, they are really thinking of accelerated erosion, or erosion increased at a rate greater than natural due to human agency. There are three main ways to obtaining information about erosion, be it natural or accelerated.