Sediment yield estimation using GIS

Abstract

A method has been developed in the present study for the determination of the sediment yield from a catchment using a GIS. The method involves spatial disaggregation of the catchment into cells having uniform soil erosion characteristics. The surface erosion from each of the discretized cells is routed to the catchment outlet using the concept of sediment delivery ratio, which is defined as a function of the area of a cell covered by forest. The sediment yield of the catchment is defined as the sum of the sediments delivered by each of the cells. The spatial discretization of the catchment and the derivation of the physical parameters related to erosion in the cells are performed through a GIS technique using the Integrated Land and Water Information Systems (ILWIS) package. Estimation de l'exportation de sédiments par utilisation d'un SIGRésumé Dans cette étude une méthode d'estimation de l'exportation de sédiments d'un bassin utilisant un SIG a été développée. La méthode repose sur une dicrétisation du bassin en mailles dont les caractéristiques d'érosion du sol sont uniformes. L'érosion de surface de chacune de ces mailles est routée à l'exutoire du bassin en utilisant le concept de fraction sédimentaire exportée, définie comme fonction de la surface de maille recouverte par la forêt. L'exportation de sédiments du bassin est définie comme la somme des sédiments fournis par chacune des mailles. La discrétisation spatiale du bassin et la détermination des paramètres physiques relatifs à l'érosion dans les mailles sont réalisés grâce à une technologie fondée sur les SIG utilisant le logiciel ILWIS (Integrated Land and Water Information).

Soil Erosion Assessment in a Hilly Catchment of North Eastern India Using USLE, GIS and Remote Sensing

“…The USLE has been widely applied at a watershed scale on the basis of lumped approach Berndt 1972, 1977;Griffin et al 1988;Dickinson and Collins 1998) to catchment scale (Jain et al 2001;Jain and Kothyari (2000) and Baba and Yusof (2001). In several other studies, watershed has been sub-divided either into cells or of regular grid or into units where a unique runoff direction exists (Julien and Frenette 1987;Julien and Gonzales del Tanago 1991;Wilson and Gallant 1996;Kothyari and Jain 1997;Onyando et al 2005, Wu et al 2005. Renschler et al (1997) used USLE and RUSLE to predict the magnitude and spatial distribution of erosion within a GIS (Geographical Information System) environment using ILWIS software in catchment of 211 km 2 at grid resolution ranging from 200 to 250 m to be more reasonable.…”

Estimation of Soil Erosion and Sediment Yield Using GIS at Catchment Scale

“…Simple empirical methods such as the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) (Musgrave, 1947;Wischmeier and Smith, 1965), the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) (Williams, 1975), or the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) (Renard et al, 1991) are frequently used for the estimation of surface erosion and sediment yield from catchment areas (Ferro and Minacapilli, 1995;Ferro, 1997;Kothyari and Jain, 1997) because simple structure and ease of application. Erosion Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) (Williams et al, 1984) and Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Model (AGNPS) (Young et al, 1987) are the examples of commonly used watershed models based on USLE methodology to compute soil erosion.…”

Identification of critical erosion prone areas in the small agricultural watershed using USLE, GIS and remote sensing

“…The USLE has been widely applied at a watershed scale on the basis of lumped approach Berndt, 1972, 1977;Griffin et al, 1988;Dickinson and Collins, 1998) to catchment scale (Jain et al, 2001); Jain and Kothyari (2000) and Baba and Yusof (2001). In several other studies, watersheds have been subdivided either into cells of a regular grid or into units where a unique runoff direction exists (Julien and Frenette, 1987;Julien and Gonzales del Tanago, 1991;Wilson and Gallant, 1996;Kothyari and Jain, 1997;Onyando et al, 2005, Wu et al, 2005. Renschler et al (1997) used USLE model and RUSLE to predict the magnitude and spatial distribution of erosion within a GIS (Geographic Information System) environment using ILWIS software in a catchment of 211 km 2 at grid resolution ranging from 200 m to 1 km.…”