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Erosion leads to displacement of soil particles by the action of water or wind (erosion and sedimentation), which may cause damage to crops, infrastructure, buildings and the environment in general. Erosion can be linear, i.e. concentrated along certain channels (rill or gully erosion), creating sometimes very deep scars in the landscape. Less conspicuous, but often even more detrimental to crops is the gradual removal of the topsoil layer (sheet erosion). Off-site effects of erosion may consist of siltation of reservoirs and river beds and/or flooding, or dune formation and ‘overblowing’ in the case of wind erosion. Soil erosion risk can be assessed through either expert-based (qualitative) or model-based (quantitative) approaches (Grimm et al., 2002). During the last decade, several initiatives have been employed to assess the risk of soil erosion at national, European and global level. Most well–known risk assessment methodologies are i) CORINE (1992), ii) RIVM (1992), iii) GLASOD (Van Lynden, 1994, 1995), iv) EEA (2000), v) USLE (Van der Knijff et al., 2000; Grimm et al., 2002), and vi) PESERA (Gobin et al., 1999). Recent risk assessment studies showed that soil erosion causes irreversible soil loss over time-scales of tens or hundreds of years and appears to be an increasing phenomenon in Europe. In parts of the Mediterranean region, erosion has reached a stage of irreversibility and in some places soil erosion has practically stopped through a lack of soil. Although it has always been considered as a severe and increasing problem in southern Europe, soil erosion, especially due to water, is becoming increasingly relevant in northern Europe. The area with the greatest severity of soil loss for both wind and water erosion is the Balkan Peninsula and the countries surrounding the Black Sea. Some central European countries such as the Czech Republik and the Slovak Republik also suffer from serious soil erosion problems (EEA, 1998).
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