The use of spatial empirical models to estimate soil erosion in arid ecosystems

Abstract

The central objective of this project was to utilize geographical information systems and remote sensing to compare soil erosion models, including Modified Pacific South-west Inter Agency Committee (MPSIAC), Erosion Potential Method (EPM), and Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), and to determine their applicability for arid regions such as Kuwait. The northern portion of Umm Nigga, containing both coastal and desert ecosystems, falls within the boundaries of the de-militarized zone (DMZ) adjacent to Iraq and has been fenced off to restrict public access since 1994. Results showed that the MPSIAC and EPM models were similar in spatial distribution of erosion, though the MPSIAC had a more realistic spatial distribution of erosion and presented finer level details. The RUSLE presented unrealistic results. We then predicted the amount of soil loss between coastal and desert areas and fenced and unfenced sites for each model. In the MPSIAC and EPM models, soil loss was different between fenced and unfenced sites at the desert areas, which was higher at the unfenced due to the low vegetation cover. The overall results implied that vegetation cover played an important role in reducing soil erosion and that fencing is much more important in the desert ecosystems to protect against human activities such as overgrazing. We conclude that the MPSIAC model is best for predicting soil erosion for arid regions such as Kuwait. We also recommend the integration of field-based experiments with lab-based spatial analysis and modeling in future research.

Assessment of soil erosion rate using the EPM model : case of Ouaoumana basin, Middle Atlas, Morocco.

“…At the national and regional levels, soil erosion is regarded as one of the primary mechanisms of desertification processes. [1]. Soil erosion has been identified as one of the most serious natural problems worldwide due to the catastrophic environmental and economic consequences of the various stages of soil loss and sedimentation.…”

“…Several empirical models are proposed to predict the soil erosion by water and 1090 (2022) 012004 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1090/1/012004 2 associated sediment yield. The problem with those models is that the most of them are not well tested and require several parameters, but they are used due to their simplicity [1].…”

Investigating Anzali Wetland Sediment Estimation Using the MPSIAC Model

“…On the other hand, some studies have been conducted to compare different models such as EPM, PSIAC, and MPSIAC to estimate the sedimentation yield (Mirakholro and Rahimzadegan, 2018;Zarei et al, 2019). Abdullah et al (2017) used MPISIAC, EMP, and RUSLE empirical models to investigate the amount of erosion in the Um-Niga region of Kuwait. The results showed that the RUSLE model did not have good accuracy, but the MPSIAC and EMP models had acceptable and close results.…”

The Use of Very-High-Resolution Aerial Imagery to Estimate the Structure and Distribution of the Rhanterium epapposum Community for Long-Term Monitoring in Desert Ecosystems

“…This comes in response to more rapid and widespread land degradation caused by climate change and anthropogenic activities [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Vegetation plays an essential role in combating desertification, enhancing human wellbeing, and reducing greenhouse gases through carbon sequestration [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. However, revegetation in dryland areas is an onerous task owing to a variety of interacting factors, including scarcity of water resources [ 6 ], unpredictable drought [ 7 , 8 ], salt-affected soil [ 9 ], limited acclimatization of species to harsh weather [ 10 ], human population growth, poor land mismanagement, and inadequate policies for ecosystem management [ 11 ].…”