Increasing land occupancy for farming without conservation principles, particularly in the Indonesian island of Java, is resulting in a severe erosion problem. This study investigated the characteristics of soil erosion and the spatial contribution of land use and land slope on erosion under the tropical climate in a watershed scale. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation model with locally source parameters assessment in a Geographic Information Systems was used for soil erosion calculation. Erosion (in unit t ha −1 yr −1 ) and land slope were classified into five classes. Meanwhile, the types of land use were classified into six types. The results showed critical erosions largely occurred in steeply sloping areas, where the main source of erosion was farmland. We found that land cultivation practices have more potential to increase soil erosion in slopes steeper than 15%, and the large amount of erosions were generated from some small areas of the watershed. This study also demonstrated the land slope and erosion correlation equations for five land slope classes, which detected that the largest effect of land slope on erosion was recognized in the low sloping areas. These findings indicated erosion studies in various land slope zones were necessary to understand the uniqueness of erosion in specific land slope areas. The present study provides a fundamental knowledge of land slope zonations for erosion control planning particularly in high-risk erosion areas.
Watershed assessment methods have been developed in many types of approaches and purposes. However, the assessment concepts which are explicitly considering spatial aspects of a watershed remain unclear. The present study performed a spatial modeling for watershed health assessment in a Geographic Information System (GIS). Five indicators presented in GIS raster maps such as annual rainfall, land slope, land use/land cover (LULC) types, soil types and population density were used for the assessment and applied in Progo watershed, Central Java Province, Indonesia. A quantitative scoring was applied to classify indicator value and to categorize the watershed health level in five zones (very poor, poor, moderate, good and very good). The result shows that the study site is covered by three health level zones (poor, moderate and good). About 47.85% of the watershed area has a moderate health level. While, 39.04% and 13.11% of the watershed area are covered by areas with poor and good health level, respectively. Spatially, the area with poor health level is dominated by farmland and steep sloping area. Spatial modeling enables a watershed health assessment with a more specific and understandable result for watershed problems control.
Large-scale land cultivation practices for agriculture which disregard conservation principles are resulting in land degradation problems in tropical regions. The differences of environmental condition become the main concern for determining proper strategies to overcome this problem. The present study aimed to evaluate the application of land and water conservation (LWC) practices in tropical agricultural watersheds. The conservation practices (in the form of regreening bare areas and construction of LWC structures i.e. small-scale dam, terrace and stone weir) were performed in a partnership scheme involving government, higher education institution, local inhabitant and private party. The result showed that the partnership approach made conservation activities possible in a shorter time and a lower risk of failure. Economically, it reduced the unit cost of the conservation structures construction up to 70%. We also assessed the dam performance for LWC purpose. The assessment indicated the dam could effectively increase soil water storage and control the river sedimentation. The use of local resources (community and materials for conservation structures) enabled the sustainable of LWC practices on a watershed scale.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.