Erosion rates are expected to increase because climate change is intensifying the forces that drive erosion, while human activities continue to strip away natural protections. Heavier rainfall, stronger storms, rising seas, thawing permafrost, and poor land management are all accelerating at once. By 2050, the erosive power of rainfall alone is projected to increase by roughly 26 to 29% globally, affecting 80 to 85% of the world’s land surface.
Rainfall Is Getting More Erosive
Rain doesn’t just wash soil away through volume. What matters most is intensity: how hard and fast the drops hit the ground. Climate scientists measure this with something called rainfall erosivity, which captures the combined effect of raindrop energy and storm intensity. As the atmosphere warms, it holds more moisture, which leads to heavier downpours even in regions where total annual rainfall stays the same or decreases.
A 2022 study published in the Journal of Hydrology projected that global rainfall erosivity will rise by 26 to 29% by 2050 and by 27 to 34% by 2070, compared to 2010 levels. This isn’t a localized problem. The researchers found that 80 to 85% of the planet’s land surface will experience increasing erosive rainfall. That means soil loss from hillsides, farmland, riverbanks, and construction sites will accelerate across most of the world, not just in regions already prone to heavy storms.
Stronger Storms and Rising Seas
Coastal erosion is driven largely by wave energy, and that energy is growing. Stronger winds produce larger waves, and storm surges push water further inland than calm tides ever would. Wave setup, wave run-up, and overtopping during storm surges are among the primary causes of beach erosion. Water weighs about 1,700 pounds per cubic yard, so the repeated pounding of storm-driven waves can undermine foundations, destroy infrastructure, and permanently reshape shorelines.
Sea level rise compounds the problem. Storm surges today ride on water levels that are already about eight inches higher than they would have been in 1900. By 2100, surges will occur on top of an additional one to eight feet of sea level rise compared to the year 2000. That means even a moderate storm in 2080 could push water further inland than a severe storm does today. The result is not just flooding but permanent land loss: global projections estimate between 2,800 and 490,000 square kilometers of net land loss over this century, depending on how much warming occurs.
Arctic Coasts Are Eroding Fastest
Some of the most dramatic erosion increases are happening in the Arctic, where three forces are converging. Permafrost, the frozen ground that holds Arctic coastlines together, is thawing. Sea ice that once shielded shorelines from wave action is disappearing for longer portions of the year. And warmer air and water temperatures are accelerating both processes simultaneously.
The numbers are striking. At 13 of 14 monitored Arctic coastal sites with records stretching back to around 1960, erosion rates have increased since the early 2000s. Along the U.S. and Canadian Beaufort Sea, erosion rates jumped by 80 to 160% when comparing the last two decades of the 20th century with the first two decades of the 21st. At Drew Point, Alaska, the coastline retreated an average of 8.7 meters per year before 2002, then nearly doubled to 17.2 meters per year afterward. At Herschel Island in Canada, the rate increased by 160%.
These aren’t abstract statistics. The village of Newtok, Alaska, has seen annual erosion rates as high as 22 meters (about 72 feet) per year along its low-lying bluffs. Tuktoyaktuk Island in Canada’s Northwest Territories is at risk of being breached entirely within the next 20 to 25 years, which would expose its harbor to larger waves and even more erosion. Communities across the Arctic are facing relocation decisions driven directly by accelerating coastal loss.
Dams Starve Coastlines of Sediment
Rivers naturally carry enormous amounts of sediment downstream, depositing it at deltas and along coastlines. This sediment replenishes beaches and marshes, acting as a buffer against erosion. When dams block that flow, the sediment settles in reservoirs instead. The coastline downstream stops receiving new material but continues losing what it has to waves and currents.
One well-documented example is the Elwha River in Washington State, where approximately 30 million tonnes of sediment accumulated behind two dams over a century. At the river’s delta, reduced sediment supply caused shoreline erosion averaging 0.6 meters per year during the latter half of the 20th century, with rates increasing over time. This pattern plays out at river deltas worldwide. Major systems like the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Mekong have all seen significant reductions in sediment delivery due to upstream damming, leaving their deltas increasingly vulnerable to erosion and subsidence.
Agriculture Erodes Soil 10 to 100 Times Faster
Natural landscapes lose soil slowly, roughly in balance with the rate at which new soil forms from underlying rock. Under native vegetation, erosion runs at a median rate of about 0.013 millimeters per year. Geological erosion over long timescales is similarly modest. Conventionally plowed farmland, by contrast, erodes at a median rate of about 1.5 millimeters per year, with a mean closer to 4 millimeters per year. That represents a 10- to 100-fold increase over background rates, according to a global compilation of studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
At that pace, conventional tillage can strip through an entire hillslope soil profile over timescales comparable to the lifespan of major civilizations. Direct comparisons between land under native vegetation and conventionally farmed land show erosion increases ranging from 1.3-fold to more than 1,000-fold, with a median increase of 18 times. As global food demand pushes more land into cultivation and intensifies farming on existing land, agricultural erosion is expected to grow as a contributor to total soil loss.
No-till farming dramatically reduces the problem. Studies compiled from a wide variety of settings show that no-till practices cut soil erosion by a median factor of 20 compared to conventional plowing. One study in Kentucky reported a 98% reduction in soil erosion from switching to no-till methods. Conservation agriculture brings erosion rates close to the natural rate of soil production, at a median of 0.082 millimeters per year. But adoption of these practices remains inconsistent, and in many regions, conventional tillage is still the norm.
Why These Factors Compound Each Other
What makes the erosion outlook especially concerning is that these drivers don’t operate in isolation. More intense rainfall hits farmland that has already lost its topsoil and organic matter, making it less able to absorb water. Rising seas batter coastlines that are already sediment-starved from upstream dams. Thawing permafrost exposes loose, ice-rich soil to waves that now have longer ice-free seasons to do their damage.
Deforestation and wildfire remove vegetation that holds soil in place, and both are increasing in extent and severity. Urban expansion replaces absorbent ground with impervious surfaces, concentrating runoff and accelerating erosion along stream channels. Each factor makes the landscape more vulnerable to the others, creating feedback loops that push erosion rates further above historical baselines. The projected 26 to 29% increase in rainfall erosivity by 2050 lands on a planet whose soils, coastlines, and frozen ground are already less resilient than they were a generation ago.