Risk assessment of soil erosion in semi-arid mountainous watershed in Saudi Arabia by RUSLE model coupled with remote sensing and GIS

Abstract

AbstractSoil erosion is the most important factor in land degradation and influences desertification in semi-arid areas. A comprehensive methodology that integrates revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model and GIS was adopted to determine the soil erosion risk (SER) in semi-arid Aseer region, Saudi Arabia. Geoenvironmental factors viz. rainfall (R), soil erodibility (K), slope (LS), cover management and practice factors were computed to determine their effects on average annual soil loss. The high potential soil erosion, resulting from high denuded slope, devoid of vegetation cover and high intensity rainfall, is located towards the north western part of the study area. The analysis is investigated that the SER over the vegetation cover including dense vegetation, sparse vegetation and bushes increases with the higher altitude and higher slope angle. The erosion maps generated with RUSLE integrated with GIS can serve as effective inputs in deriving strategies for land planning/management in the environmentally sensitive mountainous areas.Keywords: soil erosionsemi-arid watershedRUSLE modelgeospatial techniques AcknowledgementsThe author (Dr Javed Mallick) wish to acknowledge the financial support by Deanship of Scientific Research, King Khalid University, KSA; Project code 62/2012-13. NASA-USGS personnel at the land DAAC provided the latest ASTER-Terra satellite image was also greatly appreciated.