Abstract:
An ever increasing population needs more energy and food to be provided from limited
resources. Many different problems such as floods and droughts frequently occur and
even happen at extreme values throughout the world, since the inherent capability of the
resources is not evaluated properly. Soil erosion, as one of the major types of land degra-
dation, is supposed to cause serious problems for future and even present generations.
However, evaluation of the magnitude and sp
atial distribution of fundamental types of
soil erosion i.e. sheet, rill and gully erosion is
an important task to be conducted in devel-
oping countries where the necessary bases for development are required. An attempt has
been made in the present paper to introduce a technique through which the condition of
soil erosion is defined and mapped in the
study area. All available and acceptably accu-
rate information, such as the geologic sensitiv
ity of the area to erosion, the land type and
slope maps, are required for determination of
homogeneous work units using overlying.
The present character of soil er
osion in the field is then eval
uated by filling out the revised
questionnaire forms adjusted on the basis of criteria mentioned by United States Bureau
of Land Management (USBLM) and the final classi
fication of each type of erosion is made
according to the sum of scores obtained by each work unit. Finally, the overall situation is
generalized in the fractional form. The presented technique has been implemented for
more than 6 million hectares of
the area of Iran and was able to reflect the governing
conditions well and the results should be applied in the management of natural resources
to achieve sustainable utilization. For the p
resent study and for demonstrating the details
of methodology, a small watershed located in
the Markazi large watershed of Iran, known
as Barahmoom, and comprising 4236.2 ha was sele
cted as a case study. The presented soil
erosion mapping technique can be applied for
areas where only basic or very little data
and information is available.
