Modeling soil erosion in a watershed

Abstract

Most erosion models have been developed based on a plot scale and have limited application to a watershed due to the differences in aerial scale. In order to address this limitation, a GIS-assisted methodology for modeling soil erosion was developed using PCRaster to predict the rate of soil erosion at watershed level; identify the location of erosion prone areas; and analyze the impact of landuse changes on soil erosion. The general methodology of desktop modeling or soil erosion at watershed scale is composed of the following: a) model development and structuring; b) formulation of assumptions; c) gathering of information; d) database creation, manipulation, and processing; and e) dynamic modeling with PCRaster.