Abstract:
Soil erosion may cause serious environmental impact
s on soil and water resources such
as excessive sedimentation, especially on steep ter
rain and erodible soils in arid and semi-
arid areas. The sediment yield due to erosion has a
lso economic consequences on dam
watersheds by affecting economic life of dams, whic
h are one of the most important
infrastructure investments in Turkey. Thus, it is v
ery important to determine potential
erosion risk in order to develop adequate erosion p
revention measures in dam
watersheds. This study aimed to develop erosion ris
k map for Goz Watershed of Menzelet
Dam in the eastern Mediterranean city of Kahramanma
ras in Turkey. In the
methodology, Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Inf
ormation System (GIS)
technologies were employed based on COoRdination of
INformation on the Environment
(CORINE) methodology. The results indicated that 54
.52% of the Goz Watershed was
under moderate erosion risk, while there was a high
erosion risk in 45.48% of the
watershed based on the potential erosion risk map.
According to actual erosion risk maps,
11.97 and 88.03% of the watershed area was subject
to moderate and high erosion risk,
respectively. It was found that the most important
factors for erosion risks in the
watershed were steep slope (average of 38%
) and lack of vegetation cover (only 11.67% of
forest cover). Besides, the results indicated that
potential and actual erosion risk mapping
by CORINE method is a quite efficient and cost effe
ctive approach.
Keywords:
Climate factors, CORINE, Dam watershed, Erosion ris
k, Land use.
