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The impact of cotton geotextiles on soil and water losses from Mediterranean rainfed agricultural land

High soil erosion risk of Mediterranean cultivated soils is due to steep slopes, high rainfall intensities and low vegetation cover. Traditional land management as ploughing and herbicides give rise to high soil erosion rates. This paper reports on the use of a cotton geotextiles to control soil and water losses on agricultural land under Mediterranean climatic conditions. Eight paired plots (1, 2, 4 and 16 m2) were studied during 1‐year period under natural rainfall. Forty rainfall simulations under wet and dry climatic conditions, and water drop penetration time (WDPT) tests, were carried out in order to analyze the effect of a geotextile on soil and water losses on a typical rainfed orchard in Eastern Spain. Results showed that an 8 mm thick cotton geotextile reduced soil loss to negligible values (from 14 to 0·1 Mg ha−1 y−1) due to the low sediment concentration as geotextile covered 100% of the soil. However, infiltration rates decreased and runoff increased due to the hydrophobic response of the cotton material. The runoff discharge increased from 8% to 16% for the 2004 period under natural rainfall and from 27% to 87% under simulated rainfall when summer dry conditions were reached. The cotton geotextile reduced local soil losses at plot‐scale, but increased runoff. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.