The impact of land use and land cover changes on soil erosion in western Iran

Hadi Eskandari Damaneh,Khalil Habashi,Hassan Khosravi,Hamed Eskandari Damaneh,John P Tiefenbacher

doi:10.1007/s11069-021-05032-w

Hadi Eskandari Damaneh, Khalil Habashi + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05032-w

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Abstract

Analysis of long-term land use and land cover (LULC) changes requires up-to-date remotely sensed data to assess their effects on erosion. This is a particularly important assessment for regions with semi-arid landscapes where soils tend to be scarce and proper management necessitates matching LULC to local conditions to achieve sustainable land use. This study evaluates the impact of LULC changes on erosion using Landsat satellite imagery and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation model on the plains around the Jarahi River and the Shadegan International Wetlands. Supervised-classification and maximum-likelihood methods were applied to pre-processed TM, ETM, and OLI images for 1989, 2003, and 2017 to prepare LULC maps. The areal extents of agricultural land, wetlands, waterbodies, and built-up regions increased by 9.48%, 2.52%, 3.44%, and 0.13% from 1989 to 2003, respectively. During this timeframe bare (or barren) lands and wetland vegetation decreased by 11.44% and 4.13%. Between 2003 and 2017, however, the areas of bare lands, waterbodies, and built-up areas increased 12.77%, 1.52%, and 0.30%, while agricultural lands, wetlands, and wetland vegetation decreased by 9.99%, 1.32%, and 3.27%. According to the results, the areal extent of erosion at a rate > 1.1–5 Mg ha−1 year−1 has been increased by about 45.56%, 50.06% and 52.24 between 1989, 2003 and 2017. LULC changes led to increased soil erosion on agricultural and bare lands. This highlights the need to plan and manage changes to LULC to reduce erosion to and below sustainable levels. Nature-based solutions can be effectively used to reduce erosion.

Highlights

Changing land uses and land covers (LULCs) are the primary environmental change responsible for global change (Guan et al, 2011)
The LULC maps for 1989, 2003, and 2017 were categorized into six classes: bare land, wetland, built-up areas, water, wetland vegetation, and agricultural land (Figure 2). from 1989 to 2003, the areas of agricultural land, wetland, water, and built-up areas have increased by 8.12%, 3.36%, 5.6%, and 0.08% respectively (Figure 3), but bare land has decreased by 12.63%, and wetland vegetation has decreased by 4.53% over this period
This study investigated the impacts of LULC changes on soil erosion

Summary

Introduction

Changing land uses and land covers (LULCs) are the primary environmental change responsible for global change (Guan et al, 2011). Most of these changes are due to human activities like deforestation, urbanization, intensive agriculture, and overgrazing, which subsequently lead to land degradation. Insensitive and fragile areas, land degradation, and desertification reduce production capacities of different land uses (Eskandari et al, 2016); there is a need for better approaches to management. Controlling soil erosion is crucial for achieving sustainable development goals. Keesstra et al (2016) clarified the importance of soil management, erosion, prevention, and land-degradation neutrality (Keesstra et al, 2018) to promote sustainability and to achieve the SDGs

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