SOIL-EROSION ASSESSMENT AND SIMULATION BY MEANS OF SGEOS AND ANCILLARY DIGITAL DATA

Due to soil erosion processes fertile soils are washed out almost anywhere in the world. Soil erosion protection measures are necessary, especially for food security reasons. This study uses the well-known Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) to assess the long-term soil erosion in a small catchment area and to simulate various soil protection alternatives. After completion at this test site the techniques can be applied for larger regions to detect areas that are most affected by soil erosion and to guide precisely the efficient soil erosion prevention measures that proved to be valuable according to the computer simulation results. This raster-oriented study uses a very accurate multi-temporal land-use classification to determine the land-cover (C-factor). The other input variables have been determined from ancillary data (e.g., digital elevation model and soil data). The compiled data layers of this geographical information system (GIS) allow the calculation of the long-term soil erosion per pixel as well as inquiries about all data layers for every pixel. In addition to the resulting soil erosion risk map it is possible to simulate soil protection measures with the computer. This ensures that only the most effective ones are introduced to the field.