This report was prepared under Bureau of Land Management Contract No. YA558-CT4-0011 to review the literature on incised channels, including gullies. Gullies are prominent features on many rangelands in the western United States as well as other locations throughout the world. Gully initiation, growth, and development are responsible for erosion of the landscape and downstream delivery of sediment.
Many land uses, including livestock grazing and surface mining, may influence gully erosion processes. Land managers often require information on the stages of gully evolution, current stability of gully systems, and estimates of long-term gully erosion rates and sediment yields. While there are very few standardized methods for evaluating gully systems, a great deal of information on gully erosion processes has been generated. The purpose of this report is to make information on gully erosion available to resource specialists and provide a conceptual framework to help evaluate gully systems and gully erosion processes