DEM based Terrain Factor of Soil Erosion at regional Scale and Soil Erosion Mapping

Abstract

Taking 5 m grid resolution DEMs of 48 test areas in the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi as test data, this paper introduces a new terrain factor of soil erosion at regional scale, i.e. G. Results show that spatial distribution of G is related to the spatial distribution of the soil erosion intensity and G can be taken as a terrain factor of regional soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. Comparison analysis between G and LS shows G is more capable of playing the role as a regional terrain factor of soil erosion than that of LS, at least in the Loess Plateau. But G is not exact enough in evaluation processing of regional soil erosion, an integrated analysis combining the climate, vegetation cover, soil and water conservation management is demanded. For lack of measurement data at corresponding test area, quantitative analysis of correlation between G and soil erosion modulus is not reality. But based on a regional soil erosion model, a qualitative soil erosion intensity map is designed based on an overlaying calculation of G, vegetation cover, rainfall erosivity and soil antierodibility.KeywordsSoil ErosionLoess PlateauTest AreaRevise Universal Soil Loss EquationStream Power IndexThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.