Abstract
Gully erosion is a severe way of land degradation. Gullies threaten the sustainability of agro-ecosystems, causing quantitative and qualitative reduction of groundwater, farmland productivity, and waterways sedimentation. Since the gully development on the surface begins with water flow and sheet erosion, accurate monitoring of the erosive processes in a gully system and its quantification is key for the development of effective strategies to control soil erosion in gullies. Here, we demonstrate the first use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) [...]
Highlights
Gullies represent a significant source of sediments, especially in tropical environments (Poesen, 2011), reaching areas of about 3.5 ha for a single gully (Lin et al, 2015)
We demonstrate the first use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and structure-from-motion/multiview-stereo photogrammetry to evaluate the relative contribution of the different types of erosion in the gully development
Of the total sediment produced in the system, only 24 % was stored in the gully, indicating its high activity and instability
Summary
Gullies represent a significant source of sediments, especially in tropical environments (Poesen, 2011), reaching areas of about 3.5 ha for a single gully (Lin et al, 2015). Long-term studies report that gullies develop randomly and are linked with the natural mass movements associated with the removal of vegetation cover (Harvey, 1997; Lin et al, 2015). Gully development involves several sub-processes related to water erosion and mass movements, such as detachment, transport, and deposition of sediments, gully bank retreat, piping and fluting (Harvey, 1992). The complex interaction between these sub-processes, with erosion and deposition occurring simultaneously in the area (Gómez-Gutiérrez et al, 2012), coupled with the three-dimensional nature of the gullies, make it difficult to measure and quantify directly in the field (De Rose et al, 1998; Poesen et al, 2003)
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