Estimating Soil Erosion in Surguja District, Chhattisgarh (India) Using the RUSLE Model and Geospatial Techniques
摘要
Soil erosion is a problem of great concern in recent times, especially in plateau or hilly regions, dominated by moderate-to-high rainfall. Therefore, this study aims to estimate potential soil erosion using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model for the Sitapur block watershed of Chhattisgarh, India. To do so, five geospatial parameters, such as rainfall erosivity (R) factor, management factor (C), slope length and steepness (LS) factor, soil erodibility factor (K), and conservation support practice (P-factor), were extracted from satellite images, rainfall, and soil textural classes. Results show that the watershed’s K values varied from 0.08 to 0.41 based on soil textural class. The LS value of this study area varied between 0 and 1 over the study region. The values of C-factor range from −0.19 to 2.23. The land use and land cover map were utilized to compute P-factor, which ranged from 0.17 to 1. The RUSLE model indicates that the study area has undergone an annual average soil loss ranging from 0 to 47.26 tons per hectare per year.