Full Length Research Paper

Economic valuation of soil erosion in a semi arid area in Turkey

Sezgin Hacisalihoglu¹*, Devlet Toksoy¹and Adem Kalca²

¹Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Forestry, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey.

²Karadeniz Technical University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, 61080 Trabzon, Turkey.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: sezgin@ktu.edu.tr. Tel: +90 462 3772840.

Accepted 19 November, 2009

   Abstract

Economic valuation deficiency of soil erosion (because of its complex structure) is a well known matter. In this research it has been purposed to determine and calculate the economic value of the soil erosion event according to nutrient loss and their market prices as fertilizers, using the “market value of soil” method. The soil loss amounts were obtained from the measurement plots and the nutrient loss amounts from the eroded soils in the measurement plots with laboratory analyzes. Fertilizer prizes were collected from the regional fertilizer markets which are the lowest prizes in the market. The results show that an economic value loss because of soil erosion event in the research area occurs in average about 59.54 dollars (ha/year) in the pasture lands and about 102.36 dollars (ha/year) in the agricultural lands.

Key words: Soil nutrients, soil loss, market value of soil, fertilizers.