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Ephemeral gullying is an important erosion process in Mediterranean areas suffering from land degradation because of increased drought and human impact. An ephemeral gully is formed when a hydraulic threshold for incision into a resistant soil surface is exceeded. The flow intensity at the soil surface of any landscape position is controlled by topographical parameters, such as local Ž . Ž . slope S and drainage-basin area A . The objective of this study was to investigate to what extent one could use field measurements of S and A to predict the location of ephemeral gully initiation in intensively cultivated Mediterranean environments. Two relatively homogeneous study areas in Southeast Spain and Northeast Portugal with widespread ephemeral gullying were selected. S and A were measured by standard methods at the initiation point of 50 ephemeral gullies in each study area. The relationship between S and A was statistically investigated. On a double logarithmic scale, the S and A data showed considerable scatter. Orthogonal regression resulted in the threshold relationship S s aA yb with b s 0.133 for Spain, and b s 0.226 for Portugal. The analysis also showed that S and A were weakly correlated for the Spanish dataset, and more strongly correlated for the Portuguese dataset. The correlation was considerably strengthened by including additional information on planform curvature and on tillage direction relative to the gully direction. Greater soil stoniness and the presence of a less permeable horizon generally increased the threshold level in both study areas. The threshold relationships resulting Ž . from this study were compared with literature data. The indices A S and ln A rS were applied c c to our study sites but neither relationship individually described the general trend between the data ) Corresponding author. Fax: q32-31163226400; E-mail: liesbeth.vandekerckhove@geo.kuleuven.ac.be 0341-8162r98r$ -see front matter q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Ž . PII: S 0 3 4 1 -8 1 6 2 9 8 0 0 0 6 8 -X ( ) L. VandekerckhoÕe et al.r Catena 33 1998 271-292 272 of S and A. Therefore, an alternative index, A b S, with 0.133 F b F 0.226, according to the c empirical trend between drainage basin area and local slope, was proposed to describe the topographical threshold conditions for ephemeral gully initiation in similar Mediterranean areas. q

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In Mediterranean areas the dynamics of gully development act as an important indicator of desertification. However, little is known about the influence of climate and land-use changes, and almost no field data exist to assess the sensitivity of a landscape to gully erosion. Two important components of gully erosion studies are the prediction of where gullies begin and where they end. To address some of these issues, topographical thresholds for gully initiation and sedimentation in six different Mediterranean study areas were established. Field measurements of local soil surface slope (S) and drainage-basin area (A) at the point of initiation of ephemeral gullies in intensively cultivated fields (five datasets) and permanent gullies in rangelands (three datasets) were carried out. A negative power relationship of the form S = aAÀb was fitted through all datasets, and defined as the mean topographical threshold for gullying in the respective area. Topographically controlled slopes of sedimentation at the gully bottom were also measured. Compared to theoretical relationships for channel initiation by overland flow, relatively low values for b are obtained, suggesting a dominance of overland flow and an influence of subsurface flow. The influence of landsliding at steeper slopes appeared from the flattening of the overall negative trend in the higher slope range (S b 0Á30) of the integrated dataset. Comparing the threshold lines of our datasets to the average trend lines through data found in literature revealed that vegetation type and cover could better explain differences in topographical thresholds level than climatic conditions. In cultivated fields, soil structure and moisture conditions, as determined by the rainfall distribution, are critical factors influencing topographical thresholds rather than daily rainfall amounts of the gully-initiating events. In rangelands, vegetation cover at the time of incision appears to be the most important factor differentiating between topographical thresholds, overruling the effect of average annual rainfall amounts. Soil texture and rock fragment cover contributed little to the explanation of the relative threshold levels. Differences in regression slopes (b) between the S±A relationships found in this study have been attributed to the soil characteristics in the different study areas, determining the relative importance of subsurface flow and Hortonian overland flow. Sedimentation slopes where both ephemeral and permanent gullies end were generally high because of the high rock fragment content of the transported sediment. A positive relationship was found between the rock fragment content at the apex of the sedimentation fan and the slope of the soil surface at this location.

Large, deep-seated landslides are common features in the Flemish Ardennes (Belgium). As most of these old (> > > > >100 years) landslides are located under forest in this hilly region, aerial photograph interpretation is not an appropriate landslide mapping method. This study tested the potential of LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) images for mapping old landslides under forest. Landslide inventory maps were created for a 125 km 2 area by applying the expert knowledge of seven geomorphologists to LIDAR-derived hillshade, slope and contour line maps in a GIS environment. Each of the seven LIDAR-based landslide inventories was compared (i) with the other six, (ii) with a detailed field survey-based inventory, and (iii) with a comparable study in which topographic data were extracted from a topographical map. The combination of the percentage of field landslides indicated by an expert and the percentage of positional discrepancies (expressed in terms of positional mismatch) were used to evaluate the quality of the LIDAR-based inventory maps. High-quality LIDAR-derived landslide inventory maps contain more than 70 per cent of the landslides mapped during the field survey, and have positional discrepancies smaller than 70 per cent when compared with the field survey-based inventory map. Four experts and the combination map of all experts satisfied these criteria. Together the seven experts indicated all landslides mapped in the field. Importantly, LIDAR enabled the experts to find ten new landslides and to correct the boundaries of eleven (of the 77) landslides mapped during the field survey. Hence, this study showed that large-scale LIDAR-derived maps analysed by experienced geomorphologists can significantly improve field survey-based inventories of landslides with a subdued morphology in hilly regions. Figure 1. Location of the study area. The field survey-based landslides (n = 77) are shown on the LIDAR-derived hillshade map with sun elevation angle of 30° and sun azimuth angle of 315°. White arrow indicates landslide given to the experts as an example. 756 M. Van Den Eeckhaut et al.

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