Forest harvesting and fires are often held responsible for the
very high levels of nonpoint source pollution . This study used the universal soil loss equation
(USLE), as modified for forest land
to model the average soil erosion potential due to logging activities
(assuming all the forest cover changes described as tree harvesting) and forest fires (employing the JRC forest
fire data) in the EU-28 the medium term (11-year). USLE uses a
number of factors to estimate soil loss: