Abstract
Soil erosion by water is the most important global environmental problem. A modern system for assessing and monitoring soil erosional degradation should be based on the use of remote sensing data. This raises the issue of correct data decoding. The article proposes a method for visual interpretation of eroded soils according to the Sentinel image obtained in the visible range. The authors give some combinations of decoding signs to determine the manifestations of linear and surface water erosion from images. The article shows possible errors in decoding the manifestations of water erosion and gives an example of assessing the erosion of the soil cover based on the results of decoding the Sentinel-2 satellite image. Moderately and heavily eroded soils are reliably distinguished, the area of which, according to the interpretation data, was 2.4% of the area of arable land in the studied territory. In the future, the obtained sample of spectral images of eroded soils can be used to develop an automated method of interpretation based on the principle of "computer vision".
Highlights
Soil erosion by water is a "shadow of world agriculture" according to Professor S.Yu.Bulygin’s poetic statement [1]
Erosion is a huge environmental problem [2], and an economic problem estimated at tens of billions of US dollars
"Recognition" of objects is the result of a complex logical-intuitive process that only the human brain is capable of. It is the complexity of formalizing this process that has led to the fact that, despite all modern devices and developed software, visual decoding remains a very effective tool for the remote sensing data analysis
Summary
Soil erosion by water is a "shadow of world agriculture" according to Professor S.Yu.Bulygin’s poetic statement [1]. The area of land affected by water erosion in Ukraine is about 40%. Due to this and direct and indirect losses, the country's economy loses up to 10 billion of US dollars annually [1]. Direct negative consequences of soil erosion include the loss of crops, decrease in the harvest quality, and deterioration of infrastructure. Soil erosion results in a multitude of less obvious indirect effects, including e.g. disturbance of the local hydrological balance, pollution of local water bodies and smothering of aquatic organisms, among others.
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