Assessment of the soil loss caused by riverbank erosion in Serbia

Abstract

Riverbank erosion and lateral channel migration are important geomorphological processes which cause various landscape, socio-economic, and environmental consequences. Although those processes are present on the territory of Serbia, there is no available data about the soil loss caused by riverbank erosion for the entire country. In this study, the spatial and temporal dynamics of the riverbank erosion for the largest internal rivers in Serbia (Velika Morava, Zapadna Morava, Juzna Morava, Pek, Mlava, Veliki Timok, Kolubara) was assessed using remote sensing and GIS. The aim of this paper is to determine the total and average soil loss over large-scale periods (1923-2020), comparing data from the available sources (aerial photographs, satellite images, and different scale paper maps). Results indicated that lateral migration caused significant problems through land loss (approximately 2,561 ha), especially arable land, and land use changes in river basins, but also economic loss due to the reduction of agricultural production. Total and average soil loss was calculated for five most representative meanders on all studied rivers, and on the basis of the obtained values, certain regularities about further development and dynamics of riverbank movement are presented. A better understanding of river channel migration in this area will be of a great importance for practical issues such as predicting channel migration rates for river engineering and planning purposes, soil and water management and land use changes, environment protection.

GIS-Based Spatial Modeling of Snow Avalanches Using Analytic Hierarchy Process. A Case Study of the Šar Mountains, Serbia

“…As indicated by Gruber and Bartelt [30], potential avalanche release areas are strongly related to the slope inclination of the terrain in general. Therefore, GIS and remote sensing based techniques can be used to automatically and efficiently determine potential avalanche release areas and other natural hazards [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”