EROSPOT software package - part 2: Identification of waylines and beetle banks for water retention, erosion control and biodiversity

Soil erosion in agriculture reduces yield potential and at the same time damages surrounding ecosystems, especially water bodies, through sediment, nutrient and pesticide inputs. The EROSPOT project developed automated methods to identify hotspots for erosion. The hotspots indicate high priority locations for erosion control and are thus of value for farmers, advisors, policy makers and society at all (cf. EROSPOT software package part 1, Melzer and Thakur 2024).

The hotspots raise the question of concrete agri-environmental measures that can be integrated into the management of fields to avoid runoff and erosion. A new method has been published by Melzer et al. (2025) to determine such spatial explicit locations for in-field and raised vegetative barriers denoted ‘beetle banks’:

1. In-field routes of tractors (waylines) are calculated and then evaluated in a multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) considering the field geometry and terrain and associated management costs, erosion control and practicability.
2. Elevation profiles of selected waylines are then analyzed to identify sections for beetle banks that build basins for water retention. 

The software developed to automate these steps as well as exemplary data inputs are provided by the present publication. Exemplary results are shown by the EROSPOT 3D Web App. Additional details on the previously published method as well as instructions to configurate and run the software package are described in the user guide.