Land degradation is a growing concern, exacerbated by recent climate change.
Water erosion emerges as a crucial tool to address this issue. This study
focuses on estimating soil loss from water erosion in the Boussellam valley
watershed, a part of the ex-pansive Soummam basin in northeastern Algeria,
characterized by a semi-humid to humid climate. Covering an expanse of 4,301
km2 with a perimeter of 420 Km, the basin's assessment incorporates
often-overlooked factors such as temperature. Utilizing Geographic
In-formation System (GIS) in conjunction with GAVRILOVIC's EPM (Erosion
Potential Method) model, erosion projections for the year 2022 have been
generated. The findings reveal that the entire Boussellam watershed
experiences an average erosion rate of 8.50 tonnes per hectare annually.
However, it is evident that the current protective measures implemented by
decision-makers are suboptimal. To pinpoint the most vulnerable areas, GIS
was employed to map and subsequently categorize them into five levels of
erosion intensity: low, moderate, medium, high, and very high. These
detailed maps will enable more precise and tailored interventions by
decision-makers to effectively safeguard the regions most impacted by
erosion.