Using the Geographical Information System for Soil Erosion Assessment of the South Tarhuna area

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to estimate the amount of soil erosion in the area located south of Tarhuna and produces a map showing the spatial distribution of the most vulnerable areas to erosion by using Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques to calculate soil erosion factors, namely: rainfall factor (R), soil erodibility factor (K), slope length factor (S), slope steepness factor (LS), crop and management factor (C), and conservation practice factor (P), according to the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), which was calculated in the ArcGIS (10.8) software. The results showed that about 81% of the study area were classified as light erosion, which is located in the relatively flat part that slopes towards the center at a slight slope of about 3.25% to 6%, according to slopes map, and it is characterized by permanent vegetation cover (fruit trees), about 16% of the area was moderately vulnerable to erosion, while about 3% of the area was highly vulnerable to erosion due to being located within the watercourse of Wadi Wishitata and surrounded by relatively high southern and northern plateaus. The outputs show that GIS, RS, and USLE can be applied to determine soil loss on both quantitative and spatial scales, and to predict the risk of land degradation on major water catchments in Libya, provided there are sufficient spatial data.