Dataset: countries and the global rate of soil erosion (Wuepper, Borrelli, Finger 2020, Nature Sustainability)
Open access
Creator
Date
2020-01Type
- Dataset
Abstract
Soil erosion is a major threat to food security and ecosystem viability, as current rates are orders of magnitude higher than natural soil formation. Governments around the world are trying to address the issue of soil erosion. However, we do not know whether countries have much actual control over their soil erosion. Here, we use a high-resolution, global dataset with over 35 million observations and a spatial regression discontinuity design to identify how much of the global rate of soil erosion is actually affected by countries and which country characteristics, including their policies, are associated with this. Overall, moving just across the border from one country to the next, the rate of soil erosion changes on average by ~1.4 t ha−1 yr−1, which reveals a surprisingly large country effect. The best explanation we find is countries’ agricultural characteristics. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000429879External links
Publisher
ETH ZurichSoftware
Stata 16Geographic location
Place nameGlobal
Place nameGlobal
Subject
soil erosion; RUSLE; causal inference; Countries; institutions; policies; agricultureOrganisational unit
09564 - Finger, Robert / Finger, Robert
Related publications and datasets
Is cited by: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/382383
Is supplement to: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/382383
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