The Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Soil Erosion in Western Iran

Abstract

Estimates of long-term change and land cover changes using satellite imagery update data about effects erosion on the destruction. This is relevant on semi-arid land where soil resources are scarce, and proper management requires matching LULC to the conditions to achieve sustainability. This study evaluates the impact of LULC changes on soil erosion using Landsat satellite images and the RUSLE model on plains around the Jarahi River and Shadegan International Wetlands. The maps of LULC were prepared with supervised classification and maximum-likelihood methods applied to pre-processed TM, ETM, and OLI images for 1989, 2003, and 2017. This study investigated the impacts of LULC changes on soil erosion. Based on the results, we observe that an assessment of LULC changes from 1989 to 2003 revealed diminishing bare land and wetland vegetation with increases in agricultural land and water features. The areas of agricultural lands and wetlands decreased from 2003 to 2017, while bare lands increased in the area. The areas with soil erosion rates < 1 Mg ha-1 y-1 have diminished, and areas having rates >1 Mg ha-1 y-1 increased in extent. We conclude that LULC changes led to increased soil erosion in Shadegan International Wetlands. Our study highlights the need to plan LULC changes to reduce soil erosion rates to achieve sustainable management. We argue that nature-based solutions can effectively reduce soil losses.

Analysis of land use/land cover change and erosion hazard levels in the social forestry area of KPH Ulubila, South Sulawesi Indonesia

“…The higher the value of factor C (plant management index), the greater the erosion produced [5]. This is also in line with the results found by Damaneh et al (2017), which show that land cover changes increase soil erosion in the areas studied [27]. It can also be seen that changes in land cover to agriculture show an increase in erosion.…”