Gully

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This article refers to the landform. For other uses, see Gully (disambiguation).

Gully in El Paso County, Colorado, USA.

A gully is a landform created by running water eroding sharply into a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in height and width.

Gullying, or gully erosion, is the process by which gullies are formed. Hillsides are more prone to gullying when they are cleared of forest or grazed, where eroded soil is easily carried by the flowing water after being disloged from the ground, and when rainfall falls during short, intense storms as during thunderstorms. Gullies reduce the productivity of farmland where they incise into the land, and produce sediment that may clog downstream waterbodies. Because of this, much effort is invested into the study of gullies within the scope of geomorphology, in the prevention of gully erosion, and in restoration of gullied landscapes.

[edit] Etymology

The earliest usage of the term is from 1657. It originates from the French word goulet, a diminutive form of goule which means throat. It is possible that the term was derived from a type of knife at the time, a gully-knife, because hills that have gullies look as if they are cut open with a sharp knife.

[edit] See also

• Gulch

[edit] References

• Oxford English Dictionary