Sheet and Rill Soil Erosion Estimation for Agricultural Land Evaluation

Abstract

Soil erosion is an important limitative factor concerning agriculture. The estimation of soil erosion is needed for the agricultural land evaluation process, especially in the suitability process, as in Romanian land evaluation methodology. DEMs and thematic layers (geomorphometric parameters, land cover, soil particle-size) were used to apply several soil erosion models: USLE, RUSLE3D and USPED. Geostatistics was used to asses soil erosion modeling results, using soil legacy data. The areas mapped as potentially eroded and according to the strength of the potential can be used to derive a percent of the land mapping unit covered by soil erosion in different grades, according with romanian land evaluation methodology, but care must be taken to the quality of input data, for obtaining a precise estimate.