Siruvani watershed with a surface area of 205.54 km 2 (20,554 hectare), forming a part of the Western Ghats in Attapady valley, Kerala, was chosen for testing RUSLE methodology in conjunction with remote sensing and GIS for soil loss prediction and identifying areas with high erosion potential. The RUSLE factors (R, K, LS, C and P) were computed from local rainfall, topographic, soil classification and remote sensing data. This study proved that the integration of soil erosion models with GIS and remote sensing is a simple and effective tool for mapping and quantifying areas and rates of soil erosion for the development of better soil conservation plans. The resultant map of annual soil erosion shows a maximum soil loss of 14.917 t h -1 year -1 and the computations suggest that about only 5.76% (1,184 hectares) of the area comes under the severe soil erosion zone followed by the higherosion zone (11.50% of the total area). The dominant high soil erosion areas are located in the central and southern portion of the watershed and it is attributed to the shifting cultivation, and forest degradation along with the combined effect of K, LS and C factor. The RUSLE model in combination with GIS and remote sensing techniques also enables the assessment of pixel based soil erosion rate.

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Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) has been used in combination with remote sensing and GIS techniques to assess the spatial pattern and annual rate of soil erosion in the Munnar Forest Division in Western Ghats, Kerala, India. The RUSLE takes into account several factors such as rainfall, soil erodibility, slope length and steepness, land cover and erosion control practice for soil erosion prediction. Maximum soil loss of 109.31 t h −1 y −1 and the areas with extreme erosion (erosion is higher than 50 t h −1 y −1 ) are confined to 11.46% of the total area, while the area occupied by severe erosion (erosion rate between 25 and 50 t h −1 y −1 ) is 27.53%. The high rate of annual soil erosion is associated with areas of high terrain alteration from the plantation activities and highly elevated hills/ plateau margins with steep side slopes.

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