Development of Erosion Hotspots for a Watershed
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 139, Issue 12
Abstract
The loss of topsoil in the United States has resulted in low crop yield, reduction of reservoir capacity, cost increase of water treatment, and detrimental effects on aquatic life and wildlife habitats. An initial step for taking conservation measures in any watershed is to identify locations where erosion protection measures are needed. Applying the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and a geographic information system (GIS), this study attempts to locate the most erodible locations, namely erosion hotspots, for a watershed. Using GIS, the watershed is divided into grids and the RUSLE, including rainfall-runoff erosivity factor, soil erodibility factor, combined slope length and slope steepness factor, cover management factor, and support practice factor, is applied for the estimation of soil erosion potential for each grid cell. By ranking these grid values of erosion potential in a descending order, the top 1% and corresponding locations are defined as the erosion hot spots, which can be expressed in an erosion hotspot map. Applying this method to the Charles Mill Lake Watershed in Ohio, it is found that the erosion hotspots for the watershed under investigation are generally located in the areas of strip mine and cropland/pasture.
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Acknowledgments
The support provided by the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District in Ohio is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also want to thank the Huntington District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the assistance for the study. Assistance for preparing the manuscript provided by Ms. Hong Zhou, Research Assistant, Civil Engineering Department, Ohio University is appreciated.
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© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Feb 28, 2012
Accepted: Jun 21, 2013
Published online: Jun 24, 2013
Discussion open until: Nov 24, 2013
Published in print: Dec 1, 2013
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