AIRBORNE LASER PROFILE DATA FOR MEASURING EPHEMERAL GULLY EROSION

Abstract

Soil erosion, which leads to a decrease in soil productivity and a degradation of water quality, is a major problem on at least one-third of our nation's cropland. Better information is needed on the extent and severity of erosion, especially information on ephemeral gully erosion was investigated. Laser profile data were obtained over control fields with both artificial and natural gullies and recorded at 4000 pulses per second at a nominal aircraft speed of 25 metres per second and altitudes of 50 and 100 metres. A moving average filter was used to remove random noise and surface microroughness effects. Analysis of the data from the artificial and natural gully fields clearly indicated the location and cross section of gullies as small as 50 cm wide and 15 cm deep. These results demonstrated the feasibility of the approach because the tested conditions were what would be considered very small gullies.