Estimating Rate of Gully Erosion and Retreat of Gully Walls by Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in Part of Taleghan Watershed

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Graduate Student, Department of soil Science Engineering, Tehran University

2 Professor, Department of soil Science Engineering, Tehran University

3 Associate Professor, Department of soil Science Engineering, Tehran University

4 Assistant Professor, Department of soil Science Engineering, Tehran University

Abstract

In contrast to the efforts made during the last decades to investigate sheet and rill erosion processes in soil, relatively few studies have been focused on quantifying and/or predicting gully erosion. The extension of the use of modern spatial information technologies, such as geographical information systems (GIS), digital elevation modeling (DEM) and remote sensing, have created new possibilities for research in this field. A key issue to be addressed, as the basis for predicting the effects of global changes such as land use and climate changes, is the mapping and quantification of gully erosion rates, including rate of retreat of gully walls and rate of sediment production. This paper presents a method to compute the rate of retreat of gully walls and the associated rate of sediment production caused by gully erosion. The proposed method uses multitemporal aerial photographs and multitemporal digital elevation models, both of which have been processed using GIS techniques. The research was applied to the sub catchment of Hashan with 25 ha area located in Taleghan Watershed. Aerial photographs at scale of 1:20,000 from 1991 and 1:40,000 from 2001 were used to map gully erosion and determine erosion rates between 1991 and 2001. The rates of gully incision and sediment production were computed from the subtraction of multitemporal digital elevation models. The rate of gully walls retreat was 0.202 m year-1. The maximum rate of channel incision (0.5–0.9 m year-1) occurred at the head of the gully and at meandering zones. The rate of sediment production caused by gully erosion was 438±44 ton ha-1 year-1. In comparison with other methods of computing sediment production caused by gully erosion processes, the proposed method integrates the losses due to overland flow, mass movements (collapsing of walls), and gully deepening. In addition, compared with the amount of sediment produced by sheet and rill erosion, this method gives much larger amounts and, supposedly, provides an improvement to locate the areas within the gullies with higher erosional activity.

Keywords

References

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Iranian Journal of Soil Research
Volume 25, Issue 1
June 2011
Pages 71-82

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