Topsoil gone with the wind, rain Topsoil gone with the wind, rain Challenging conventional wisdom, an ECU study has shown that significant amounts of topsoil are being eroded every year from the flat farm fields of eastern North Carolina. Dr. Paul A. Gares, assistant professor of geography, said wind alone carries off several tons of soil per acre.
Rainfall washes tons more into ponds, streams and field margins.
Erosion generally has not been considered a major threat in the coastal plain, in part because of the flat topography. The sandy soil also was thought to allow water to pass through the soil layers instead of running off. ECU faculty questioned those assumptions in the face of shallow, apparently truncated layers of soil and accumulated sediment in eastern rivers. Gares has continued the project, now in the fourth and final year. He presented his initial findings to the 1998 International Aeolian Conference in England.