Catena 151 (2017) 130136

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Catena

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Early cultivation and bioturbation cause high long-term soil erosion rates
in tropical forests: OSL based evidence from Ghana
Henrik Breuning-Madsen a,, Jeppe grd Kristensen a, Theodore W. Awadzi b, Andrew S. Murray c
a
Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
b
Department of Geography and Resource Development, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
c
Nordic Luminescence Laboratory, Aarhus University, Risoe Campus, Roskilde, Denmark

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Soil erosion in forests is often considered negligible or minimal. In some tropical forest ecosystems, however, the
Received 4 April 2016 combination of continuous surface exposure of ne soil particles at the upper slope by soil macrofauna and epi-
Received in revised form 26 October 2016 sodic precipitation can cause considerable downslope soil transport, and the introduction of slash and burn agri-
Accepted 7 December 2016
culture is often found to speed up soil erosion even more. Here we, for the rst time, use OSL dating to quantify
Available online xxxx
the long-term soil erosion rate along a hillslope in the moist semi-deciduous forest zone of Ghana. During the last
Keywords:
~ 45000 years about 100 cm of sediment has accumulated at an approximately constant rate of ~ 0.13
Bioturbation 0.21 mm year1 (1.953.15 t ha1 year1). This is about an order of magnitude higher than literature estimates
Soil erosion from similar environments, primarily obtained using short-term experimental setups; this suggests that care
Early cultivation should be taken when extrapolating short-term erosion estimates to centennial or millennial timescales. We fur-
OSL dating ther deduce that an apparent acceleration in erosion began ~4500 years ago. This may be due to the introduction
Tropical semi-deciduous forest of cultivation in the area, slightly earlier than previously suggested (28003500 years ago). In this case the ero-
Ghana sion rate based on deposition below 100 cm (~0.05 mm year1) can be taken to represent the (natural) erosion
rate without human inuence; this value is consistent with literature estimates. More retrospective studies of soil
erosion rates are needed in order to conrm the validity of our methodology and results, as well as to test the re-
liability of extrapolated short-term erosion estimates.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Soil erosion is a main cause of soil degradation around the world, not
least in the humid tropics (Labriere et al., 2015). It is typically assumed
to be very small or even non-existent under dense natural forest vege-
tation (Garcia-Ruiz et al., 2015). However, in some tropical forest eco-
systems the continuous exposure of readily erodible sediment to the
surface by termite and ant activity (Awadzi et al., 2004; Lobry de
Bruyn and Conacher, 1990; Nye, 1955) has long been believed to
cause considerable erosion from upper slopes to foot slopes (e.g. Ahn,
1970; Nye, 1954). However, only relatively few estimates of long-term
forest soil erosion rates exists, the great majority on short timescales
(b 3 years, Garcia-Ruiz et al., 2015; Labriere et al., 2015). A recent soil
erosion meta-analysis (Garcia-Ruiz et al., 2015) shows that there is a
correlation between the estimated mean annual erosion rates and the
duration of the studies, indicating that extrapolation of short-term ex-
periments tend to overestimate the long-term erosion rates. This analy-
sis also showed that wet tropical environments are underrepresented in
soil erosion studies. According to Labriere et al. (2015) meta-analysis of
soil erosion studies in the humid tropics, the majority of the soil erosion
Corresponding author at: Oester Voldgade 10, DK 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
E-mail address: hbm@ign.ku.dk (H. Breuning-Madsen).
studies in forests last 35 years. Thus, there is a strong need for long-
term estimates of soil erosion to validate the reliability of extrapolation
of short-term results. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating is
increasingly applied to study past landscape response to climate and
land use change by dating foot-slope deposits (reviewed in Fuchs and
Lang, 2009). It integrates soil erosion over hundreds to thousands of
years, and can thus provide a real long-term estimate.
Land use change due to human activity, primarily crop cultivation, is
known to increase soil erosion substantially (e.g. Fuchs and Lang, 2009;
Labriere et al. 2015). Unfortunately there is little rm evidence
constraining the introduction of crop cultivation in West Africa.
Adekola (2011) concludes that yam and oil palms were likely the rst
crops to be cultivated in forested areas of West Africa, as these are native
to the region and still are some of the most important crops for domestic
purposes. He suggests that the occurrence of stone axes from about
5000 years BCE indicates use of the oil palm as a crop. Nonetheless,
most other botanical and archaeological evidence suggest that the
major introduction of slash and burn cultivation was not until ~ 3
4000 years ago (Adekola, 2011; Sowunmi, 1985, Stahl, 1993). Thus it
is not clear when, or even if, human use of the landscape began to mod-
ify erosion rates in tropical forest ecosystems in West Africa.
The aim of this study is to quantify the deposition rate at a foot slope
in the semi-deciduous tropical forest zone of Ghana. By dating sediment

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2016.12.002
0341-8162/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136 131

samples collected in relatively high vertical resolution in a foot slope soil
pit, we estimated the long-term erosion rate (inverse of the deposition
rate). Changes in deposition rate and implications for extrapolation of
short-term erosion estimates are discussed.
1.1. The study site
The study site is located at the University of Ghana Agricultural Re-
search Station, Kade (6 05N; 0 55W) in the moist semi-deciduous for-
est zone in Ghana (Fig. 1). The climate is humid tropical and the average
annual temperature is about 28 C with a difference between the coldest
(August) and the warmest month (March) of b5 C. The rainfall pattern
is bimodal with a mean annual rainfall of ~ 1400 mm (Wills, 1962),
mainly falling from March to mid-July (major rainy season) and from
September to November (minor rainy season). There is a major drought
period in DecemberFebruary where some of the trees lose their leaves.
Annual potential evapotranspiration is about 1400 mm, and the annual
actual evapotranspiration is about 1200 mm (Christensen and Awadzi,
2000). The soil moisture regime is udic and the soil temperature regime
is isohyperthermic (Soil Survey Staff, 1998; Van Wambeke, 1982).
Christensen and Awadzi (2000) estimated that up to 15% of the precip-
itation runs off on the surface, which is thought to provide the main
down-slope transport process.
The studied catena is located in an approximately 50 ha patch of rel-
atively undisturbed forest. The study site has been a protected forest
since the beginning of the 20th century (Nye, 1961) and the vegetation

Fig. 1. Location of the study area, University of Ghana Agricultural Research Station, Kad, and the dominant agroecological zones of Ghana.
Modied from Awadzi et al. (2004).
132 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136
is the Antiaris-Chlorophora association (Lawson et al., 1970). As the for-
est is protected, no tree cutting or collecting of rewood has been
allowed for almost one hundred years, and all fallen trees, logs and
branches decay naturally as a result of the activity of soil macro- and
micro-organisms (Awadzi et al., 2004).
The forest is located in a gently rolling part of the Birim basin with
soil parent materials being almost exclusively Pre-Cambrian (Lower
Birimian) rocks, predominantly phyllites, greywackes, schists and
gneisses (Adu, 1992). It covers an approximately 1000 m long gentle
south and north-facing slope (~ 45%), meeting at the valley bottom
where a tributary of the Kadewa River, a small seasonal stream, drains
the site. Drainage is generally good on upland sites but decreases
down-slope towards the streambed, where the soils are waterlogged
at shallow depth.
The soil types along the slope represent one of the most typical
catenas in the moist semi-deciduous forest zone of West Africa; in
the Ghanaian soil classication system this is called the Bekwai-
Nzima-Oda association (Ahn, 1970; Owusu-Bennoah et al., 2000).
Fig. 2 shows some of the soil types according to the World Reference
Base (WRB, 2006), and their relative locations along the south-facing
slope. The soils at the upper part of the slope are mainly Acrisols.
They are red/brown, concretionary, acid to very acid, well drained
kaolinitic clay soils of sedentary origin formed over Birimian rock
with phyllite and intrusions of quartz as the main constituents
(Wills, 1962). Saprolite and soft rock are found at 150200 cm
depth. At the middle and lower slope the soils are slightly acid to
very acid, yellowish brown clay loams developed in alluvial/colluvial
deposits. On the upper part of the middle slope the soils are normally
well drained, while the soils on the lower part are only partly well
drained with gley features at shallow depths. According to the
World Reference Base, the soils in the upper part are mainly Acrisols
or Lixisols while the soils in the lower part are mainly gleyic Lixisols.
On the valley bottom the soils are imperfectly drained (Gleysols) and
consists of greyish clay loam to sandy loam; these are slightly acid
and ooded in the major rainy season.
For a thorough description of the genesis of the catena soils investi-
gated here we refer to Awadzi et al. (2004) and Breuning-Madsen et al.
(2004). For this study, it is however worth noting that the parent mate-
rial for the lower slope catena members (Kokofu and Kakum) is made
up of eroded topsoil from the upper slope members (Bekwai and
Nzima).
Fig. 2. Schematic presentation of the catena. The arrows show the location of the soil pits.
Modied from Awadzi et al. (2004).
2. Method
2.1. Field observations, soil description and sampling
Soil proles were excavated at two sites, one placed on the upper
slope where soil erosion exceeds deposition; the other is located
down-slope, where deposition is assumed to exceed erosion. Fig. 2
shows a schematic presentation of the catena with the two soil proles
marked by arrows. The soil on the upper slope belongs to the Nzima soil
series according to the Ghanaian soil classication system. According to
WRB (2006), it is a Cromic Acrisol. The soil type on the middle slope,
dominated by colluvial deposits, belongs to the Kokofu soil series ac-
cording to Ghanaian soil classication system and is a Haplic Lixisol ac-
cording to WRB. The soil proles were briey described using the FAO
Guidelines for soil prole description (FAO, 1990), except soil texture,
which was described according to the USDA texture classication sys-
tem (Soil Survey Staff, 1998).
The gravel free top-horizon on the upper slope is a readily erodible
layer derived from sediment which was originally pasted into logs and
onto branches by termites and ants (Supplementary 1); these ne par-
ticles have been removed from the horizons below, causing a relative in-
crease in gravel sized particles in these layers. The lower-slope prole
show rather homogeneous texture throughout with no gravel in any
of the horizons, supporting the concept that this soil was formed in ma-
terial eroded downslope from the gravel-free upper horizon of the
upper-slope (Awadzi et al., 2004).
Biologically transported soil-derived material is visible in live as well
as dead trunks and branches along the entire catena, although the den-
sity decreases towards the bottom. Because deposition exceeds erosion
on the lower slope, a gravelly textured pisolite layer has not developed.
The texture is generally less clayey-silty and more sandy than the up-
slope soils, probably because of alluvial sorting processes during the
transportation of the material downslope. Pedologically, the soil prole
is characterized by some clay illuviation and gley formation; the latter is
common from ~1 m depth with some reddish brown spots that harden
irreversibly when dried (pisolites).
For traditional soil analyses samples were collected from the soil ho-
rizons within the uppermost meter of the prole, each made up of sev-
eral subsamples collected within a square meter. Samples for OSL dating
were taken in metal tubes ~ 4 cm diameter, and ~ 30 cm long. These
were hammered horizontally into a soil prole wall, the ends covered
 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136
Fig. 3. Photo of the investigated soil type (Kokofu series) showing indicated sampling
depths. The deepest sample (115 cm) was collected further down.
Photo by the authors.
to prevent further light exposure, and the tubes sealed with adhesive
tape. They were extracted at 15, 20, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 and 115 cm
below the surface (Fig. 3).
2.2. Analyses
2.2.1. Particle size distribution, pH and total carbon content
The composite soil samples were air dried and passed through a 2-
mm sieve, and the content by weight of gravel (N2 mm) was deter-
mined. Particle size distribution was determined by sieving sand frac-
tions and by using the hydrometer method for determining the silt
and clay fraction (Day, 1950). Soil pH was determined potentiometrical-
ly using 0.01 M CaCl2 at a soil-solution ratio of 1:2.5. Total carbon con-
tent was determined by dry combustion using an Eltra CS500-analyser
(ELTRA, 1995).
2.2.2. OSL dating
On return to the laboratory, the material from the outer 5 cm from
each end of the tube was reserved for dose rate analysis; a portion of
the inner material was reserved for water content measurement and
the remainder used for luminescence measurements. The latter was
wet-sieved to 180250 m and treated with HCl, H2O2 and concentrated
HF in the usual manner to prepare a quartz-rich extract (Wintle, 1997).
Finally, 8 mm diameter aliquots of grains were mounted for later mea-
surement on 9.8 mm diameter stainless steel discs using silicone oil.
Luminescence measurements were made using a Ris TL/OSL reader
model TLDA 20 incorporating a calibrated beta source of dose rate
133
~ 0.1 Gys 1. Stimulation employed blue LEDs (470 30 nm;
~ 80 mWcm 2 at the sample position) or infrared LEDs (870
30 nm; ~ 150 mWcm 2). UV luminescence was detected through a
U-340 glass lter using a photomultiplier tube (Btter-Jensen et al.,
2010).
Since quartz does not give a signicant response to IR light, but only
to blue, the luminescence purity of the quartz extracts were conrmed
by comparing the effects of IR stimulation with those of blue light stim-
ulation; all IR stimulated signals were b 0.1 of the corresponding blue
signals. A representative natural stimulation curve is shown inset to
Fig. 4, together with a corresponding curve measured using known
fast-component-dominated calibration quartz (Hansen et al., 2015)
for comparison. Equivalent doses (De) were measured using a SAR se-
quence, with preheat and cutheat temperatures of 260 C and 220 C re-
spectively, optical stimulation at 125 C, and an elevated temperature
blue light stimulation (40 s at 280 C) at the end of each SAR sequence;
a typical dose response curve is shown in Fig. 4. A dose recovery mea-
surement was undertaken to test the suitability of the selected SAR pro-
tocol; this gave a measured to given dose ratio of 1.06 0.08 (n = 39)
averaged over all samples, conrming that our protocol is able to mea-
sure with sufcient accuracy a dose given in the laboratory before any
thermal treatment. The De estimates summarised in Table 2 were calcu-
lated as arithmetic means of 1824 large aliquots per sample (5 outliers
out of 180 aliquots were rejected using Tukey's interquartile test for
outliers with k = 1.5 (Tukey, 1977).
The dose rate material from each end of the tube was dried and
homogenised by grinding before mixing with wax (~ 60% sample/
total) to retain radon gas and casting in a xed cup-shaped geometry.
These samples were then stored for N 20 days (ve 222Rn half-lives) be-
fore counting on a calibrated high resolution germanium detector to
measure the activity concentrations of the uranium and thorium
decay series, and 40K (Murray et al., 1987). These concentrations were
converted into dose rates using the factors given by Gurin et al.
(2012); all radionuclide concentrations and dry dose rates are
summarised in Supplementary 2. The dry dose rates were then modied
by the presumed lifetime water contents (Aitken, 1985) and added to
calculated cosmic ray dose rates (Prescott and Hutton, 1994) to give
the total dose rates of Table 2.
Data from Kristensen et al. (2015) suggest that CAM single grain OSL
doses are 71 3% (n = 9, R2 = 0.97) of the multigrain doses (Supple-
mentary 3). It was evident that the amount of saturated grains played
an important role in increasing the multigrain ages, so only the samples
from the soil prole with b 5% saturated grains were used to calculate
the ratio. The current study is conducted in an environment with an
Fig. 4. A typical dose response curve for an aliquot of sample 115,603, showing the
sensitivity-corrected natural OSL signal interpolated onto the SAR dose response curve
(lled circles) to give the corresponding equivalent dose (De). The recycling (unlled
square) and recuperation (unlled triangle) are also shown. Uncertainties are hidden by
the symbols. The rst 10 s of the natural stimulation curve is shown inset, together with
a corresponding curve from calibration quartz (Hansen et al., 2015) for comparison.
134 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136

Table 2
Multigrain and adjusted OSL ages from the lower slope soil prole (Haplic Lixisol). The er-
rors show 1 standard error, n is the number of replicates and w.c. is the soil water content
used for the age calculation.

Sample # Depth Multi grain OSL Adjusted

Eq. dose n Dose rate w.c. Age Age

cm Gy Gy ka1 % ka ka

115,601 15 1.88 0.07 24 1.15 0.19 13 1.6 0.3 1.2 0.2

085602 20 1.79 0.04 18 1.26 0.06 17 1.4 0.1 1.0 0.1
115,602 30 3.5 0.1 24 1.17 0.06 14 3.0 0.2 2.1 0.1
115,603 45 5.3 0.1 24 1.24 0.06 5 4.3 0.2 3.1 0.2
115,604 60 5.7 0.1 23 1.23 0.06 6 4.6 0.2 3.3 0.2
085604 75 6.7 0.4 18 1.07 0.05 13 6.3 0.5 4.4 0.3
115,605 90 8.1 0.2 24 1.23 0.07 8 6.6 0.4 4.7 0.3
115,606 115 16.0 0.5 19 1.21 0.07 2 13.2 0.9 9.4 0.6

Fig. 5. Multigrain (MG) OSL ages (yellow circles) and adjusted (ADJ) ages (red triangles)
( 1 standard error) for the lower slope soil prole (Haplic Lixisol). The linear
regression through the upper 90 cm (dashed line) of the adjusted ages show an
accumulation rate of about 0.21 mm year1 during the last ~45000 years (R2 = 0.96).
The MG accumulation rate (the minimum rate) is 0.13 mm year1. Below ~100 cm the
apparent accumulation rate is signicantly lower (MG: 0.04 mm year1, Adj.:
0.06 mm year1). The dotted lines show the = 0.95 condence interval for the
regressions. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this gure legend, the
reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
expected similar land-use history and on material with similar lumines-
cence characteristics (high sensitivity). Also, based on Fuchs and Lang
(2009), it seems a fair assumption that the number of saturated and
poorly bleached grains in the samples for the current study is limited.
Therefore, we have used the ratio for calculating an adjusted age
based on our multigrain ages, as we believe this is a more reliable age
estimate. Both multigrain and adjusted ages are shown in Fig. 5 and
Table 2 to allow the reader to make own conclusions, as we acknowl-
edge that further investigations are needed to conrm this approach.
Nonetheless, the accumulation rate based on the multigrain age can
be viewed as a minimum rate.
3. Results
Table 1 shows basic soil properties for the two soil types. Table 2 and
Fig. 5 show the OSL ages of the soil at the lower slope. A linear regression
of the data in the upper ~1 m of the soil was performed (only random
sources of error considered, as the systematic error is assumed equal
for all samples). It suggests a rather constant surface accumulation
rate of about 0.21 mm year1 (3.15 t ha1 year1, assuming a bulk den-
sity of 1500 t m3) during the last ~4500 years (R2 = 0.96). The age of
the sample from 115 cm depth is substantially higher (MG: 13.2
0.9 ka, ADJ: 9.4 0.6 ka), which may be seen as a consequence of the
natural erosion level without human inuence (MG: 0.04 mm year1,
ADJ: 0.05 mm year1). Ignoring the higher clay content below 45 cm
(Table 1) due to lessivage, the sandy matrix of the soil is rather homoge-
neous. This supports the conceptual model; on the upper slope soil
fauna carry particles less than ~ 1 mm to the surface to paste it into
logs, while subsequent downslope alluvial transport sorts the sediments
further. After deposition percolating water cause lessivage removing a
fraction of the clay from the upper horizons, which is subsequently de-
posited in underlying horizons (cf. clay content, Table 1).
4. Discussion
4.1. Method discussion
Previous studies from similar environments have suggested that
multigrain OSL ages may overestimate the real deposition ages
(Fuchs and Lang, 2009; Kristensen et al., 2015). In a slope study con-
ducted approximately 150 km to the south-east of the current study
area, Kristensen et al. (2015) observed the same marked shift in de-
position rate ~ 6500 years BP with quartz multigrain ages. However,
subsequent single grain investigations suggested that the shift was
not until ~ 4000 years BP. Although post-depositional mixing was
generally found to be very small in the upper 100 cm, the MG age
overestimation was found to be caused by a few very old or saturated
grains. These are likely mixed upwards from deeper layers by
termites, which cannot be excluded in the present study either, as
termites are present along the slope (Awadzi et al., 2004). This antic-
ipated presence of a small amount of saturated grains skewing the
MG doses in the top 100 cm, is the reason why we include the adjust-
ed ages, although we recognize its speculative nature.
The obvious presence of forest termites and other potential
bioturbators (e.g. tree roots) suggests that some degree of post deposi-
tional vertical bioturbation could have taken place, as described in other

Table 1
Basic soil parameters from the upper and lower slope soil types. The horizon depths are in cm below the surface. The grain sizes (wt%) show the distribution when the gravel is omitted.
These numbers are from Awadzi et al. (2004), where further information can be found. Here, they are presented in merged and generalized horizons.

Location and b2 m 250 m 502000 m Gravel Org. C pH Colour Mottles

horizon depths % % % (Fe-nodules) % CaCl2 moist (gley)
cm %

Upper slope
I 020 30 38 32 0 2.1 5.7 10YR 3/3 None
II 20100 34 44 22 40a 0.8 4.3 5YR 4/4 Few diffuse
III 100 + 36 56 8 3a 0.7 4.2 5YR4/6 Many distinct
Lower slope
I 010 23 36 41 0 4.3 7.2 10YR 2/3 None
II 1030 28 30 42 0 1.1 6.7 10YR 4/6 None
III 3045 28 29 43 0 0.6 6.3 10YR 5/4 None
IV 4580+ 41 21 38 0 0.3 6.3 10YR 5/4 Few soft spots
a
More that 90% iron/manganese nodules.
 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136
studies (e.g. Bateman et al., 2007a, 2007b; Stockmann et al., 2013). This
is a challenge for any sediment dating method, as they assume negligi-
ble post depositional mixing. The authors do not have the sufcient data
to exclude vertical mixing totally, but if post-depositional vertical
mixing was substantial, the ages should have been indistinguishable,
which is not the case. Alternatively, if the sediment was adequately
bleached during transportation down the slope, and the accumulation
rate at present is similar to the last 45000 years, the extension of the
linear regression should theoretically intersect the surface at 0 years
(origo). In fact, the regression lines intersects the y-axis (MG: 5.6
16.2 ADJ: 5.8 16.1) ~6 cm above the surface. This may indicate inad-
equate bleaching of surface grains, but could also be due to a real change
in deposition rate, although the large standard errors due to extrapola-
tion must be emphasized. All in all, the available data does not allow us
to draw rm conclusions regarding adequate bleaching of all grains nor
vertical mixing. However, based on the relatively small standard errors
and the intersect of the y-axis close to zero, we suggest that our rate es-
timates of 0.13 (MG) and 0.21 (ADJ) mm year1 provide a useful rst
estimate of the long-term erosion rate down the slope of interest.
Lessivage appears to have transported material vertically in the pro-
le of the present study (Bt horizon below 45 cm, Table 1). However, the
grains used for dating are in the ne sand fraction (180250 m), which
do not move due to lessivage. Nonetheless, clay migration could theo-
retically inuence the environmental dose rate used to calculate the
OSL ages (Table 2), as the radioactive soil isotopes are closely associated
with clay particles (e.g. Olley, 1994). This issue is yet to be investigated,
and should be a focus of future studies in order to allow widespread ap-
plication of OSL in soil formation studies. For the current study this
seems irrelevant, as the dose rates in Table 2 do not show any correla-
tion with depth.
4.2. Comparison to literature erosion estimates
OSL is used to reconstruct landscape formation history by dating
specic alluvial or colluvial deposits (Fuchs and Lang, 2009). They are
typically aimed at dating distinct events or periods of considerable soil
erosion (e.g. Eriksson et al., 2000; Fuchs et al., 2010), rather than esti-
mating long-term rates by dating multiple samples vertically distribut-
ed in a uniform soil unit. Nevertheless, Fuchs et al. (2004) published a
slope study from an archaeological site in Greece with geometry similar
to the present study. When a linear function is tted to their data from a
rather uniform foot slope soil for a time-period comparable to the pres-
ent study (~1.88.0 ka; 200500 cm, Prole B1 and B2), an average ero-
sion rate of ~0.45 mm year1 is estimated. This is 23 times higher than
in the present study. The abundance of artefacts throughout this depth
interval suggests human presence during the entire period. This sup-
ports the suggestion that human activity increases soil erosion substan-
tially, when measured on 102103 year timescales. Dreibrodt et al.
(2014) also estimate OSL based Holocene soil erosion rates from an ar-
chaeological site ranging from 0.2 to 15.2 t ha1 year 1 (~ 0.01 to
1.01 mm year 1), which is in line with the results of the current
study. Few other studies present OSL proles for foot-slope deposits
(Heimsath et al., 2002; Stockmann et al., 2013). These used single-
grain OSL to investigate soil mixing, and thus are not directly compara-
ble to the current study. Nonetheless, it is difcult to determine whether
OSL equivalent dose distributions are due to soil mixing or incomplete
bleaching or a combination. Moreover, only few long-term soil erosion
estimates based on other methods exist for tropical ecosystems.
Hewawasam et al. (2003) and von Blackenburg et al. (2004) applied
in situ production of cosmogenic nuclides in tropical Sri Lankan high-
land forests. The two studies yielded erosion rates of 0.130.30 and
0.050.30 t ha 1 year 1, respectively. Another tropical catchment
scale cosmogenic nuclide study from Puerto Rico (Riebe et al., 2003) es-
timated soil erosion rates of 0.791.01 t ha1 year1. This is about an
order of magnitude lower (0.0030.07 mm year1) than the rate esti-
mated in top 100 cm of the current study (0.130.21 mm year 1),
135
assuming similar bulk densities. However, due to the method applied,
these rates from Hewawasam et al. (2003) and von Blackenburg et al.
(2004) are integrated over timescales of 50250 ka, which is much lon-
ger periods than the current study. Interestingly, the gures are quite
similar to the erosion rate estimated below the top 100 cm in the cur-
rent study (0.040.05 mm year1). This lends support to the idea that
this rate is close to the natural long-term rate in tropical forests with-
out human inuence, i.e. due to the termite driven process described in
Section 2.1. The difculty of obtaining good retrospective erosion rate
estimates on Holocene timescales limits our ability to verify or refute
the gures obtained in the current study. More retrospective erosion
studies on similar timescales and in similar environments are clearly
needed.
The estimated average accumulation rate of the present study is
generally considerably higher compared to short-term erosion rate
estimates. A recent review of short-term soil erosion rates from humid
tropics show that the estimate in the top 100 cm of the present study
is much higher than estimated rates from any type of tree-
covered land (average 0.110.27 t ha 1 year 1, Labriere et al.
2015). These numbers corresponds better to the erosion rate below
100 cm (~ 0.75 t ha1 year1). The rate calculated in the top 100 cm
is more comparable to gures from croplands (average 0.83, spanning
0.661.02 t ha1 year1), although still substantially higher. Cerdan et
al. (2010) present average short-term rates from the Mediterranean
area of 0.84 t ha1 year1 for arable land and 9.05 t ha1 year1 for
bare soil. The previously mentioned long-term estimate from
Greece based on data from Fuchs et al. (2004) yields corresponds to a
rate of ~ 6.7 t ha1 year1 (assuming a bulk density of 1500 kg m3),
which is closer to short-term rates for bare soil than for arable soil.
This suggests that short-term erosion studies may underestimate the
long-term erosion rates, and contradicts the general tendency found
in the recent metastudy by Garcia-Ruiz et al. (2015) who examined
studies on short to intermediate timescales. More retrospective esti-
mates must be obtained to investigate this further.
4.3. Land use change
The natural erosion rate in tropical forests driven by bioturbation is
rather small based on the literature values, which also corresponds to
the estimated erosion rate below 100 cm in the current study. Retro-
spective studies have demonstrated that human deforestation, primar-
ily due to introduction of agriculture, have increased erosion rates quite
substantially in the past (Fuchs and Lang, 2009). Fuchs et al. (2004) in-
dicate that the erosion rate increases quite substantially in their study
area at the time when charcoal and artefacts become abundant in the
soil proles, i.e. when human activity becomes substantial. They also
nd a similar jump in age below the depth of apparent artefacts. Evi-
dence from the current study suggests that already around 4500
5000 years ago, the erosion rate along the slope in the tropical forest
changed markedly. Modern analogue short-term rates and retrospec-
tive studies suggest that such rates are only found in areas of intense
cultivation or even bare soil (see previous section). However, most ar-
chaeological and botanical evidence suggest that agriculture was not in-
troduced in West Africa until about 28003500 years ago (Sowunmi,
1985, Stahl, 1993). Despite the fact that it has never been supported
by botanical evidence, some authors have nevertheless suggested that
the discovery of stone axes in Ghana dating back to ~7000 years ago is
an indication of early marginal cropping systems in forest areas with
the native species of oil palm and yam as the main crops (Adekola,
2011) - these two crops are still today of great importance in the
study area. The present dataset lends support to this hypothesis.
5. Conclusion
Over the last ~4500 years about 100 cm of soil has accumulated on
the foot slope in our study area, in a moist semi-deciduous tropical
136 H. Breuning-Madsen et al. / Catena 151 (2017) 130136
forest in Ghana. This accumulated at an approximately constant rate of
0.130.21 mm year1 (1.953.15 t ha1 year 1), about an order of
magnitude higher than suggested by short-term erosion estimates in
the literature. We thus argue that care must be taken when extrapolat-
ing short-term erosion estimates to longer 102103 year timescales. An
apparent tripling or quadrupling in erosion rate from ~ 0.05 to 0.13
0.21 mm year1 seems to have happened about 45005000 years ago.
Although most botanical and archaeological evidence place the intro-
duction of agriculture around 28003500 years ago, our dataset may
support the suggestion of an earlier human landuse change indicated
by the presence stone axes in another location in Ghana. These axes
predate the erosion rate change found in our study, and have been
interpreted as an early tool for cultivating oil palms and yam.
Further retrospective studies should be carried out in order to verify
the archaeological implications of current ndings, and to add further to
the discussion about the reliability of extrapolated short-term erosion
estimates.
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2016.12.002.
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